Operation: Shooting Star
by redtrouble
Summary: The Spice sisters fight alone against the Alliance... until they meet the Gundam pilots. Through them, the girls find friendship, family, and even love they never thought existed. NOT Heero/Duo romance.
1. Ohm

I slipped my index and middle fingers through slats in the blinds and scissored them open to see out into the dreary world; I squinted past the water bubbles stuck on the outside of the window. The sky was dark, blanketed by thick and heavy clouds painted in wisps and blotches of black and gray, puffing and bulging; lightning lit up the clouds, exposing the threatening belly near-to-bursting with the next water baby waiting to be born. What was that line about spring showers?

_Any minute now,_ I thought. The ground was already drenched to the surface and small pools in the yard looked glassy from where I stood. There was a deep rumbling somewhere behind the clouds. No sense in waiting on the next waterworks terrain-reshaping project about to be underway. Watching storms were nice; being caught out in them was as fun as putting an ice-pick through your own skull.

I released the blinds and glanced at the clock perched on the roll-top in the corner, at the digital red letters glaring at me in the dark room. _4:30 already?_ I looked at my sister sleeping peacefully on the worn, striped couch and smiled for a second. After a last glance outside, I left the window seat and crossed to the couch.

"Sorry…" I said to the sleeping. I didn't want to wake her but… "Ania," I began, gently shaking her by the shoulder. "Ania," I whispered again. "Ania, it's time to wake up."

She didn't budge.

"Ania… Ania," I said louder. "Wake up. C'mon, time to get up."

Her eyelashes fluttered for a second and I raised my brow expectantly; then, they stopped batting and she made a sound describable as a delicate snore. _Great…_ I shook her harder.

"Nia!" I said louder and yanked the pillow out from under her head. Her red-orange eyes flew open and she stared up at me, startled. I stared back, waiting. After a moment, the wires in her brain buzzed and life clicked behind her glassy gaze.

"What time is it?" she asked groggily.

"It's four thirty," I replied.

"Already?" She pushed herself up with the heels of her palms and yawned. I stood up.

"Yeah. Come on. We have work to do."

She nodded in the middle of another yawn and began stretching.

"Coffee's on the brew," I told her as I went into the kitchen. She groaned and collapsed back onto the couch.

"Coffee..." she droned, zombie-mode in full effect.

I threw the pillow at her and she rolled off the couch with a screech. She glanced up at me peering around the kitchen's archway threshold.

"You… you're not my friend today…" she mumbled. I smiled and disappeared into the room. She tucked the pillow under her head and curled up on the floor.

/

Ania glanced up at the clock. 4:44 quickly turned to 4:45. Her gaze dropped back down to the blueprints spread out on the kitchen table and she took a sip of coffee. She motioned down the length of the map, tracing an invisible line. She stopped and jabbed the spot.

"Here," she said. "The power terminal is here. I'll hack into their network. If you can get around here," she traced another path to the opposite side of the blueprint, "by 5:57, I can throw the power on the alarm. A routine power buzz occurs at 5:57 every night, without fail."

I looked up at her and saw the serious look in her eyes. I narrowed my gaze on her.

"Yeah, yeah. I know, you mapped that thing for, like, weeks."

"_Months_," she corrected me, tone filled with deadly seriousness. She sipped her coffee again and then went back to her plan.

I pursed my lips; at least she'd gotten rid of the twitch. The rest of the trauma was something only time could iron out.

"You'll have exactly one minute to open the lock and get inside. You've gotta be quick; the alarm usually only flickers with the power, but I'll be shutting it off. It's hard to say if that will peak the nightshift's interest, so I'll have to turn it back on the moment the power flicker ends to kill suspicion."

"Not a problem," I assured her. "A minute is more than enough time." I hoped.

She pointed to another location on the south side of the building I'd be infiltrating.

"This location is right below the office," Ania continued, "where we'll find our prize. As soon as you're in, I'll pack up shop and make my way here for the pick-up."

"Perfect."

"Now… what about you?" she asked. I pulled on a look of surprise, like I wasn't sure what she was talking about. Her blood-bond eye-lasers saw right through me; it was hard hiding from siblings. "The alarm will have been triggered after the drop-off and you'll have all of three minutes before security gets through that door, so what's your plan for escape?"

"Don't worry," I said. "I got it all figured out." I went to the counter and began strapping on my utility belt.

"You're a liar." She followed me. "Chona, you told me you had this figured out weeks ago."

"I do—"

"I see no parachute or hover-down—"

"I told you," I threw my boot onto the counter and tucked a sheath knife into it and tied it to my leg, "I can't carry anything like that if I expect to clunk around _unnoticed_."

"I know, so what _are_ you going to do?"

"Don't worry about me," I insisted. "I'll be fine. I always am." I backed away from the counter, went back to the blueprints, and picked my gun up off the table. She didn't move.

"You do realize this mission is a little more… _dangerous_ than usual, right?" she asked me.

"I know." I checked my clip and jammed it into the gun.

"These prints aren't official. This corporation is funded by OZ."

"I know," I repeated, yanking back the slide to check the chamber.

"That has to tell you something. We don't know exactly what's in there…"

I set the safety off, holstered the weapon under my left shoulder, and shrugged.

"Yeah, well… I'm feeling lucky tonight," I told her, and then I added a smile for extra charm. She looked ill.

"You're never lucky…" she muttered. I gave up and moved into the living room, yanking a sock hat on my head and tucking my ponytail into it; she was close on my heels. "You repel luck. You're like anti-luck."

I spun on my heel and stared her in the eyes.

"I'll be fine. There's always a way out. I'll find it."

"And if you don't?" she trailed off. I tried to win the staring contest, but she was deadly. I gave up, pulled on my jacket, and crossed to the front door.

"Then we got what we came for." I opened the door. "You know the rules—the mission comes first; everything else is expendable."

Ania stared at me and then let her gaze fall to the floor. She knew the rules and understood them. She had to let it go. It was inevitable.

/

I slipped across the grass that looked black with the clouds over the moon. My boots dug traction into the mud and made a sucking sound with every step I took. I was surprised the rain was stalling, and pretended it was for my sake; it proved I was lucky.

"Four paces to marker seven." I pressed my back to a tree and glanced across the yard to the holly hedge snaking around the side of the building. "Twelve paces to marker eight..." I muttered, counting out the steps to the hedge. I rolled underneath and hit the wall; I waited for silence and then got up, cleaned my shoes off on the pine straw, and then shimmied along the side of the building.

"Alright Chona," Ania's voice came through the earpiece I wore. "Where are you?"

I spent an inch bending around the concrete wall, made note of the double doors, and spun back into cover.

"I'm at the doors," I replied.

I glanced around the corner again and watched the guard stopped at the doors shift his weight from one foot to the other, turn, and walk back down the hall. I slipped from cover, rolled across the bottom of the steps, and flatted my back against the alcove to hide in the shadows. I kept watching the guard until he went around the corner and disappeared. I climbed three steps and tucked myself on the side of the door.

"I'm at the power box," I told her, glancing at my watch. 5:48.

/

Ania looked up from her watch and left her hiding spot in the bushes. She scurried through the shadows to the generator house only a few yards away. There was one guard. She tucked herself against the metal frame and crept around it. He was slouched against the door, half-asleep, and probably bored out of his mind.

Ania prepared a chloroform rag and then looked for a stick on the ground. She found none. _How can there be no sticks?_ she asked herself. Fuck immaculate lawn care. She mentally added another note to her list of lifelong happinesses: mediocre lawn service; you always need at least one stick in the yard.

After a half-minute of searching, she gave up and sacrificed the only expendable object she had on her: her favorite tube of lipstick. She tossed it over his head and shrank back into the darkness when he jumped up and glanced across the yard. His vigilant gaze sought the darkness while she moved in behind him and covered his mouth with the chloroform-soaked cloth.

"Easy," she whispered in his ear, holding fast to his struggling form. After a moment, he stopped fighting and slumped into her arms. She eased him to the ground, pulled him into a sitting position against the generator house, and set to work hacking the keypad.

"Status?" I asked. Ania plugged her scrambler into the keypad and began running numbers.

"Hacking into door number one," she replied. The scrambler had already identified three out of six numbers and was working on the fourth.

"And what'd you find?" I asked. Number five… and number six were confirmed. The door clicked open and Ania went inside and quietly closed the door behind her. The single light flickered on.

"An unsuspecting power terminal," she replied.

"Go easy on it."

Ania ignored the chain-link fence that surrounded the generator units and went straight to the computer terminal at the back of the room. She dropped her backpack, pulled out her laptop, and immediately began setting it up. She checked her watch—5:53—and plugged the computer into the terminal.

"I'm running a tracer program to find a ride into the network," she explained, tickering away at the computer. "I'm getting listings of all access codes."

/

I glanced at the hallway and noted the guard had come back. I kept my back pressed to the wall and remained obscured in shadow. My heart was pounding against my ribcage but I didn't dare take a breath as the guy stopped at the door and scanned the yard.

"I'm in," Ania said into my earpiece. I waited in silence until the guard turned and walked away again. I let out a long sigh and guesstimated I had around six minutes between his rounds.

"How long?" I wanted to know.

/

Ania eyed the computer clock. 5:55.

"I'm taking over their network now," she said and tapped enter. "Okay. Power belongs to me. Get ready," she said, noticing the clock turn 5:56. "Your big moment is coming up."

She followed the coding into the security system configuration program, traced the 0s and 1s to the alarm settings, and prepared an emergency shutdown.

"Get ready to be a ghost," Ania told me, scheduling the shutdown for 5:57.

/

I slipped the portable drill out of my utility belt and crouched next to the keypad.

"And that's a go in five… four… three," she counted, eyes on the stopwatch, "two… one! Go, Chona, go!"

I immediately began rewinding the screws, ignoring the lights flickering inside the building.

"One," I muttered. "Two…" I counted the screws up to four and pulled the cover plate off. I chose the next tool from my belt—a pair of pliers—and secured the trigger. Next, I pulled out cutters and clipped the red wire, shredded the plastic, clipped the white wire, shredded the plastic, and stored the evidence in my utility belt.

"You in yet?" Ania's voice came through my earpiece. "You're approaching the forty-five mark."

I twisted the wires together and heard the lock on the doors click.

"They're open," I said.

/

Ania rebooted the alarm system and readied reactivation.

/

I pulled my pliers off the trigger and screwed the cover plate back on as fast as I could. I shoved my tools back on my belt and slipped inside with a few seconds to spare.

"I'm in," I told her.

/

"And we're back," Ania whispered, reactivating the alarm. She let out a heavy sigh of pent-up tension and shut her computer down. She unplugged it, wound the cords up, and shoved everything back into her satchel that she threw over her shoulder.

She slipped out of the generator house, confirmed it was locked, and ducked back into the shadows.

"Making my way to the drop-off point."

/

I sprinted down the hall following the path I had memorized from the blueprint and was more than relieved when I ducked into the elevator alcove and noticed the guard trot around to the back door. I called the elevator and peered around the corner again.

The guard shuffled there for a moment, like he'd done before, and then turned around. I ducked behind the wall and took deep breaths. I heard the clicking of his shoes on the tiled floor as he drew nearer and then turned.

The elevator binged when it reached my floor. I ducked inside and took it up four floors. Floor five and six required a special key to access, so I took the stairs up two more flights to level six.

It was quiet and dark when I exited the stairwell. I kept my eyes open and my ears alert. The floors were carpeted and it would be harder to hear shoes on them.

I moved down the corridor to the right, ever cautious. I kept going the way I'd learned until an unfortunate event put a stop in my momentum.

A t-section not on the blueprints.

I moved my head from one side to the next. _Left… or right?_ I asked myself. The familiar pat-patting of boots on carpet caused my heart to nearly leap into my throat. There was a door on my left so I took it and ducked inside a small office.

I slumped against the door and dropped into a crouch. I could hear the footsteps get louder and louder until they were right on the other side of the wooden portal.

"Fuck…" I pressed my palm to my forehead and sighed when his footsteps carried on. I was so relieved, I thought I might pee my flak pants.

"What?" Ania asked. I slowly got to my feet and peered out of the door. The coast was clear.

"I'm lost," I explained.

"You're what?" she exclaimed.

"There's a junction not on those prints."

"Uhm," she muttered. I couldn't hear her chewing on her lip but I knew that's what she was doing. "When in doubt…"

"Take another left," I finished her thought, and left the office. I followed the wall around to the left and picked up the route drawn on my mental map. It wasn't long before I came to an ornate set of double doors trimmed in gold that formed a giant OZ emblem when they were closed, as they were now. I sprinted down the hallway and used the friction of my boot on the carpet to pull a quick-stop at the keypad next to the doors.

I pulled the scrambler from my utility belt and hooked it into the terminal. Waiting was near unbearable. 7, 4, 9, 2, 8, 1. The doors clicked open and I went through.

"I'm in," I announced.

/

"Good," Ania said as she wound around the building. "I'm not far. Get that safe open."

/

My first task, actually, was to secure the door. I used the terminal inside to jam the lock and then I disabled the panel. Now, there was no easy way in _or_ out.

The office was styled with a classic taste—rich, red carpet, pearl-white walls, mahogany crown and base molding, and a gold chandelier. The safe sat on a chestnut table outlined in black marble with gold trimmings; all the other furniture, including the giant desk center-pieced against the floor-to-ceiling window wall, was part of the matching set.

My fingers brushed the green surface of the safe and stopped at the black and silver lock. It was an old and traditional lock, easy to crack and easier to rig. They could be opened in one of two ways: with the control mechanism given to the owner or the old fashioned way—turning the dial and hoping you didn't slip up and surrender your mishap to one fatal boom.

That was the advantage over the near-universal replacements of keypads or retinal scans; it couldn't be defeated by technology and was sensitive to the stupid.

"Our intel was right," I said. "It's an oldie."

/

Ania cursed under her breath and she aligned herself six stories below the glass window of the office she knew I was in.

"So much for your luck," she muttered.

"I know," I replied. "I was doing so well, too. Do you have the freefall ready?" I asked as my sister planted the small, metal box on the ground. She pushed a button on the top of it to arm it and stepped back, trigger in hand.

"Ready," she confirmed and crossed her fingers.

/

"Good," I said, kneeling at the safe. I took a deep breath, held it for a three count, and exhaled. I'd found my zen place. I reached for the dial.

"Good luck," Ania screeched over the earpiece. I twitched.

"Thanks," I mumbled. I did my breathing thing again, snuggled back into my zen place, and took hold of the dial. "Nine right…" I set the dial to 9 and licked my lips. "Twenty-six left." I spun the dial twice and stopped at twenty-six. "And forty-five right." One spin, two spins, three spins…

And the dial stopped at forty-four.

/

Ania stared up at the window, heart thumping and lungs inflated with a held breath. She vibrated her crossed fingers, nearly pushing herself onto her tippy-toes.

/

There was no explosion. My fumble had saved the day.

"Chona… Chona… What happened? Is it open? What's going on?"

I moved my mouth but words didn't come out, so I kept practicing the motion until my vocal chords were able to vibrate again.

"I—I—I don't know. I—I… I dialed the wrong digit but… somehow it was the right one."

/

In spite of the situation having been won in our favor, Ania felt the poison of adrenaline shoot into her bloodstream as panic overwhelmed her. It was a delayed reaction considering the danger had passed, but she felt entirely justified if she happened to freak the fuck out on the corporate lawn.

"Oh my God," she hissed. "Oh my God. Oh my God!"

"He heard you the first time."

"I can't believe you, you lucky son of a bitch!"

"I told you…" I muttered and grinned. "Just call me Lucky fuckin' Charms and follow the rainbow flying out my ass."

/

I popped the lock off and opened the safe. A cloud of steam puffed in my face then cleared as the air pressure released. I reached inside and withdrew the small chip, dropped it into a small box I'd brought in on my utility belt, and went to the window. I couldn't see her down there, but I knew my sister was waiting. The last item I carried on my belt was a small detonation device. I stuck it to the window, set a twenty second timer, and ducked behind the oak desk.

"Explosion's set," I said. "Clear the window."

/

Ania shuffled away from the building and hid in a row of trees. She could hear the faint sound of beeping in the background as the timer slowly slid down to zero. There was a flash of light in the clouds, a threatening rumble in the sky, and then…

Boom!

The glass shattered and rained down to the ground in glittering spikes. An alarm immediately began wailing. Ania rushed over to the window and stared up as I came into view.

"Special delivery," I sang and dropped the box. Ania punched the trigger and the metal box on the ground exploded into a dark green jelly that cushioned the box's fall. It sank to the ground and Ania fished it out of the goop.

Mission accomplished.

She gazed up at me and waited, unable to tear herself away. _There's no escape plan, is there, Chona?_ she thought. Of course there wasn't.


	2. Interrogation

The banging on the office doors startled me.

"What's going on in there?" a muffled voice shouted. I glanced back at the door.

"Open up!" another voice exclaimed. The pounding continued.

"Break it down!" a third voice ordered. I frowned and checked my surroundings. There wasn't much to work with; everything in there was going to make more of a splat than I would if dropped six stories. Let that be a lesson—wood furniture looks nice, but is completely useless when trapped on the top floor.

I kept looking around, including a quick glance for a secret passage behind the bookshelf. My luck had run out; there was no secret passage, only wall.

/

Ania kept staring up at the window and got nervous when I disappeared from view. She knew that technically she was supposed to get that chip back to base, regardless of Chona's fate; but her blood bond said 'fuck technicalities' and that sounded like a great idea to her.

"C'mon, Chona," she whispered.

A sudden noise behind her caused her blood to freeze and her body to go rigid.

"Well, well, well… what do we have here?" a mysterious voice said. "Another righteous babe trying to make a name for herself?"

Ania slowly turned to face her intruder and saw the silhouette of a man with a long, thick braid emerge from the shadows.

"Who are you?" she asked. He ignored her question.

"Looks like you picked the wrong day to make a name for yourself, sister. Time to face the God of Death."

She narrowed her gaze on him.

"Okay, you don't expect me to take that seriously, do you?" she asked.

"I'll take that," another voice behind her said. Before she could respond, the box was snatched out of her hand. She spun around, red-orange eyes now blazing in anger. This new man stood at least a foot over her.

"Nice work, Trowa," the man with the braid said. Ania's head snapped back in his direction. The one known as Trowa checked the box, confirmed its contents, then lifted his wrist to his lips and talked into a hidden microphone.

"Quatre, Wufei… the chip is secure," he said. To the man with the braid, he added, "I'm going to help them secure the area."

"And I'll make sure this little one doesn't try to run off," the other told him and offered a salute to the retreating man. Ania's hands balled into fists at her sides as she stared hard at the stranger. He grinned as he moved closer and his features became distinguishable.

He was tall with blue-lavender eyes and brown hair. He wore black jeans, a matching leather jacket with a red shirt underneath, boots, and a mechanic's cap. She ignored the fact that he had a handsome face and, instead, focused on the hatred boiling in the pit of her stomach.

"God of Death, was it?" she asked through clenched teeth.

"You can call me Duo," he told her, still moving closer. Ania inched backward. "And you are?"

"No one you need to know," she retorted. He grinned and she felt the uneasiness in her gut begin to grow.

/

"Where is the chip?" a deep voice asked. I jumped and spun around, sweeping a whole shelf of books to the floor. A man with brown hair, a green tank top, and black shorts had a gun trained on me. I couldn't stop my gawking.

"How the… _hell_ did you get in here?" I blurted. He stepped closer.

"Where is the chip?" he repeated and I noticed the callousness in his blue eyes. The pounding on the door suddenly became louder and shouts behind it reminded me that my time was almost up.

I glared at the stranger.

"You're a little late," I replied. "It's with my partner and, by now, far away from here."

He grunted. "I doubt that." To the communicator on his wrist, he said, "Duo, do you have the girl?"

"Yup, she's right here, safe and sound," Duo replied over the device and I heard every word loud and clear.

"The package?" the stranger asked.

"With Trowa and the Heavy Arms by now."

"Good."

He lowered his wrist, gun still aimed at my chest. My first sensation was fear—fear that Ania was somehow in unimaginable danger. The next sensation was blind rage. I was so tense, my vision started to go fuzzy and I was pretty sure I was shaking.

"You're coming with me," he said, and I recognized that it was a command, not a suggestion.

"Go to hell," I spat. His already furrowed brows snapped closer together.

"Almost through!" a guard yelled through the door. There was a flash of lightning outside followed by an earth-shaking crack of thunder. The sky wasn't going to hold off much longer.

"You have three options," the man before me began. "You can come with me and live. You can fight me and die. Or, you can wait for those guards to break through and exit in OZ custody."

I wracked my brain for a sassy option number four to throw in his face, but I never even had an option number one; plus, I wasn't thinking clearly. So I just kept staring angrily, waiting for my body to accept what my brain already had: that I was going to accept his offer and go with him.

The door cracked under the poundings and I snapped out of my boiling reverie.

"So what will it be?" he asked. I grunted and the door cracked again. One more and it would give way.

"Let's go!" I yelled, sprinting toward him. The door was hit again and it flew open, splintered off the frame. The man wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me into him as he propelled himself out of the window.

The men that ran into the room began firing just as we cleared the opening and started our freefall. A bullet ripped through my sleeve and burned a slice in my arm as it sailed past. I inhaled the rush of air and it took my breath away. I felt his arms close around me as we turned in mid-air so that his back was facing the ground.

"Duo!" he yelled. I was flung from his grasp but landed in another pair of arms.

"Got ya!" Duo exclaimed. I scrambled to my feet and shuffled away from him. The man who'd rescued me landed in a crouch with what appeared to be zero injuries. "Nice throw, Heero."

_Impossible… even for a computer!_ I thought. Impossible for clearly everyone but him…

He stood up and he and Duo ushered Ania and I across the yard, barely dodging the gunfire from the sixth floor, and into the woods lining the property. We were stunned when we reached a clearing. Two mobile suits knelt in the glade just below the tree-line.

"What the…" Ania muttered. "Those are—"

"Gundams," I finished for her. My gaze focused on the one called Heero. He couldn't be… could he? He yanked me over to the legendary Wing Zero, secured his foot in a cable, drew me close, and we were pulled up to the open cockpit of the mobile suit. I glanced over toward the other suit I recognized to be the Death Scythe Hell and watched as Ania and Duo climbed up.

Gunfire pinged off of the alloy armor of the Gundam and Heero returned fire before he dropped into the chair, yanked me into his lap, and closed the hatch. _This is impossible,_ I told myself, but somehow we managed to fit.

"Up you go!" Duo said, pulling Ania onto the door of his mobile suit. The Wing Zero stood up and began covering his escape with heavy gunfire.

"We can't both fit in here!" she shrieked over the noise.

"Today we are."

"And how do you propose we do that?"

He grinned. "You get to sit on Santa's lap," he said, patting his right leg. Ania glared at him.

"You're joking right?" she asked as he yanked her into his cockpit and sealed the door. _Apparently not._

"Trowa, we need to get the chip to Aria Station," Heero told his fellow pilots over the comm.-link.

"I'm on it," Trowa replied. A video of a boy with blond hair and blue eyes popped up on a screen to Heero's right.

"Heero, Duo—you guys go ahead. Wufei and I will wrap up things here." His voice was gentle, unlike the others.

"Then we'll meet you at Aria," Heero said. He powered up his mobile suit for flight and rocketed up into the sky. Duo and Trowa followed. I noticed the sky broke and rain began pouring to earth just as we passed through the troposphere. Then, there was the stillness of the earth's atmosphere.

"Hurry up Quatre, Wufei. We'll have pizza back at the station." Duo told them.

"Sounds good," Wufei said, gunfire blazing in the background. Then the comm. channels closed and there was utter silence save for the boosters pushing us into outer space.

/

Ania and I had been thrown into a holding cell the moment the Gundam pilots had docked at the space station called Aria. For our first trip to outer space, we'd barely seen any of it. Trapped in that cell, we couldn't tell where we were; might as well have been earth.

Our hands were cuffed, our stomachs were growling, and we had no idea how long we'd been sitting there. The bullet graze on my arm was throbbing. We avoided talking, knowing we were being monitored, and sat in silence. I was tired of it; I had cotton mouth and I could taste my bad breath. Now who was going to be intimidating in interrogation? That's right, me. Let that be another lesson: don't let your hostages build up defenses because you'll free pretty stupid offering them a breath mint.

I had zoned out on Ania and caught her gaze when she looked up. I grinned.

"What's so funny?" she asked. The sound of her voice was a relief compared to the static humming of the ventilation system.

"I told you I'd get out," I replied. Her face contorted into a shape that said: I am not amused. I backed off and went back to practicing my role as a mute.

A door opening into the detainment deck vibrated through the metal walls and the sounds of footsteps put us both on our feet. Moments later, the thick hatch to our cell was wrenched open and two guards appeared with Duo who was holding three boxes of pizza.

"Anybody hungry?" he asked, smirking. The guards grabbed us by the arms and yanked us down the corridor to a steely interrogation chamber; I clenched my teeth and trapped the wince in my throat as the guard's thumb mashed my wound. We were both a little surprised to see four other faces staring at us. The guards aggressively suggested we take seats at the table and then left the room. The door closed with a loud clank.

I was expecting a drawn out silence to attempt to intimidate us, followed with a "so". So's are always bad news. But the moment the door closed, Duo dropped the pizza boxes on the table, opened the top one up, and inhaled.

My stomach growled.

"Anybody hungry?" Duo asked again, pulling a greasy slice from the box with cheese stringing off of it. My mouth was watering and cursed cotton-mouth was history. "A cheesy, yummy slice of pizza anyone?"

We didn't say anything.

"All you have to do is answer a few questions and you can have all you want," he told us. Ania glared at him.

"That's an interesting tactic," she said. "Certain socialist regimes and insurgent military operations use starvation as a form of torture."

Duo took a moment to process that; the outcome presented a face that let us know he wasn't pleased at being compared to a socialist. He leaned closer to my sister and waved the pizza under her nose.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"I don't answer to socialists," she hissed. He stood upright and took a bite out of the pizza.

"That hurts my feelings," he said around a wad of cheese and bread.

"No… sophisticated guy like you? I don't believe it."

"Pretty determined for a hostage," Duo remarked and took another bite of pizza. I was starting to enjoy myself; if I could get my hands on a piece of pizza, I thought it would be a pretty good show.

I glanced over at the other pilots and noticed the frown on the blond boy's face; I thought he looked like he didn't agree with Duo's methods, but I couldn't know for sure.

"No," she corrected him. Her tone was hard, punching syllables; _whoa,_ I thought, _danger, danger, high voltage, red alert_. "I just don't like you."

He put his face in hers and evened out their glaring contest.

"That makes two of us, babe," he uttered darkly. After a moment of silent threats daggered between their eyes, he turned to his fellow Gundam pilots. "Careful of this one, you guys. She bites."

"Then I would be especially careful handling my partner," Ania remarked. All eyes turned on me. _Oh, right, scary mode,_ I thought and went into my serious face. Truth is, I was finding the banter really amusing and might've briefly slipped out of my solemn warrior countenance. _Grrrr,_ I thought, and sent grr's straight at Duo via invisible psywaves.

Duo sighed and crammed the rest of his pizza in his mouth, as if the very idea of attempting to talk to me was more than he could deal with. He sauntered over to his buddies, grabbing another slice of pizza on his way over. _Damn you,_ I thought. _Stop eating that! You pig, monkey, sea cucumber!_

"They're not going to talk," Trowa said to Duo when he was close enough to whisper to.

"Yeah," Duo agreed, exhausted by our stubbornness. "Any suggestions? Cause I'm about ready to start shooting—"

"Duo!" Quatre scolded. "We're not going to kill them."

"I never said 'kill', I said 'shoot'. A few ones in the leg might readjust the attitude, that's all I'm saying."

"Separate them," Heero said calmly.

"Heero's right," Wufei chipped in. "They're strong because they're together. Separate them, and their resolve will weaken."

"I don't know about that," Quatre said. "Would it do the same for any of us? I don't know that they're our enemies."

"Who cares?" Duo sighed. "They piss me off."

Heero pushed off of the wall he was leaning on, crossed the room to where I sat, and ripped me out of the chair. Again with the pressure on my wound; jerks, all of them! He guided me out of the room by aggressive suggestion. _Must be friends with those guards,_ I thought.

"Where are you taking her?" Ania asked, hiding her concern behind monotone curiosity. Duo ignored her question and dropped the open pizza box in her lap.

"Tell me," he said. "What's a girl like you doing playing thief?"

/

Heero tossed me back in the cell and I stumbled a few steps. _Geez. Take these cuffs off and try that again,_ I thought. Unfortunately, he was a lot stronger than the guard who'd escorted me earlier and my arm was pulsing in pain. He'd really opened the wound up and now there was fresh blood all over my flak jacket.

Heero noticed the tension in my face and checked his hand. Blood slicked across his fingers. Without questions, he pulled a med-kit off the wall and came into the cell with me. I stepped to the back of the cell, not really sure where I thought I was going, and slumped onto the wall bench.

"Take off your jacket," he said as he knelt next to me, opened up the kit, and began preparing antiseptic. I hesitated and then unzipped it and pushed it off my shoulders. With my hands still cuffed, taking it off entirely was impossible.

I nearly broke teeth grinding them together as he cleaned my wound and took a needle and thread to it.

"Who are you?" he asked as he wove the needle through my skin. I threw my head against the wall and stared up at the ceiling.

"Uh-o, don't ask me questions while I'm standing in for needlepoint practice."

He applied a little pressure on my cut and I winced.

"Your name," he insisted and continued to sew.

"Aren't you a bit of a sadist?" I asked. "Go ahead and rip out the stitches. I'm not talking."

Surprisingly, he finished the job, taped a cotton square over the stitches, and wrapped my bicep in gauze. I was expecting more questions, but Heero just packed the kit up and walked out. The door closed with a heavy thud and the lock slid in place.

"Damn it," I muttered. I pulled my sock hat off and scratched my head. What the hell had we gotten ourselves into? I shrugged my jacket back over my shoulders and slumped against the wall. In a fit of anger, I threw my sock hat across the cell. It went about five feet and crumpled on the floor. _How anti-climatic…_ I thought and stared at the ceiling again.

/

When Heero returned to the interrogation room, Ania noticed the blood he was wiping off his hand and feared the worse.

"You've gotta be kidding me…" she muttered. She never thought the Gundam pilots, symbols of hope in the fight against OZ, would resort to physical abuse.

"What happened in there?" Wufei asked. Heero gave a slight shake of his head and went to stand next to his comrades. They whispered amongst each other again.

"Anything?" Heero asked.

"Nothing," Duo replied.

"This is going to take some time," Trowa said. "Days, possibly weeks."

"Like we've got that kind of time," Duo reminded him.

"It's our only option for now."

Duo glanced back at Ania. "Man," he groaned. "You and your partner sure are a pain in the ass."

"Runs in the family," she retorted. Duo's ears perked and he smirked.

"The family, eh? So your sisters," he said. Ania frowned at him, mentally kicking herself. "Well," Duo muttered. "Now that _is_ something…"

He walked over to Ania and reached for her wrists.

"I think that deserves a bite," he started to say, but the moment he undid the cuffs, Ania's hand flew out and she smacked him hard across the face. He stepped back, hand to his cheek, as the guards rushed over to restrain her and snap the cuffs back on.

The look in her eyes was of pure hatred.

"Well if you're gonna be that way about it…" Duo muttered and turned to walk out. "Good riddance." Wufei, Heero, and Trowa moved to follow him. Quatre crossed to Ania and knelt at her side.

"Are you okay, miss?" he asked. She could read concern in his round, blue eyes and didn't know how to respond. Her throat was swollen tight by her anger.

"Quatre," Trowa called from the door. "Don't bother. Let's go."

Quatre sympathetically touched her knee and followed the rest of his companions. The two guards then ushered her to her own cell. When the door sealed her inside, Ania collapsed on the bench, faced the wall, and curled up.

/

I was pretty sure it was the middle of the night when the lock on my door cranked and the heavy, metal hatch swung open. It felt like the middle of the night. The lights had been dimmed and, well, that was really all I had to go on.

I sat up on the bench as the silhouette in the door came closer and Quatre appeared.

"Oh, you're awake," he said softly. "I didn't mean to wake you."

I have to admit that I kind of wasn't thinking about what he was saying and had, instead, zeroed in on the tray of food he'd brought me.

"You didn't…" I muttered, but I was really thinking, _is that soup I smell?_

"How are you feeling?" he asked quietly and set the food tray beside me. I snapped out of the soup-trance and narrowed my gaze on him; _well played, sir_, I thought. _This is an angle I didn't expect you to try._

"I'm not some wounded victim you rescued," I reminded him. "I'm one of the bad guys, remember?"

He smiled at me like I was stupid.

"Oh, I don't about that," he said and motioned to my arm. I glanced at it and noticed the gauze through the slice in my flak jacket. "You seem wounded enough to me."

_Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater._

Quatre knelt in front of me.

"Consider this scenario," he began. "We had the same objective: secure the chip containing information imperative to Operation: Shooting Star and deliver it to the resistance for analysis. You and your sister get there first."

Little alarms went off in my head when he used the word "sister". They'd found out, somehow; how much more did they know?

"I believe we're on the same side," he continued. "There are many organized resistances but they usually all lead back to the same place."

"Do your friends know you're talking to me?" I asked him. He shook his head.

"No," he admitted and pushed the tray closer to me. "They're a little rough around the edges but their intentions are for the best. Eat."

I stared at the soup and bread, the water and hot tea, and tried not to drool.

"Their intentions…" I repeated. "I don't really like that word. Intentions are shit next to actions."

He nodded, stood up, and turned to go. _Wait, that's it?_ I asked myself. He was really going to accept that and go?

"Is there anything else I can do to make you more comfortable?" he asked.

"Yeah. Take off the cuffs and let me go."

He smiled like I was actually joking, closed and locked the door, and I was alone again. Well, it was worth a shot.

I chugged half the glass of water in about three seconds and attacked the soup and bread.

"Potato…" I mumbled around a mouthful and tears nearly came to my eyes.

/

Quatre prepared another tray of food and went next door to Ania's cell. When he entered, she was glaring from the far corner of the room. He thought she looked like a fox—small, cornered, and dangerous.

"I hope you're hungry," he said, for the sake of small talk, mostly; he knew she was starving but thought bringing it up could be insulting.

"This episode again?" she asked. There was venom in her words.

"No. I promise," he assured her and set the tray before her. She searched his eyes for answers and he smiled gently. "I just came from your sister. She looks better. Her arm is all patched up."

"Patched up?"

"Heero must've done it earlier when they separated you. There was no fresh blood, so it must be healing well."

"Oh…" was all Ania replied with, and she curled back into her own thoughts. The blood she saw was from helping her sister?

"I proposed an idea to your sister and I'd like to know what you think," he said, and ran through the scenario he'd presented minutes before, ending with the conclusion that they were on the same side. "What do you think?" he asked.

"I think it doesn't sound _im_plausible," she answered, slowly rotating her spoon in circles in her soup. Truth be told, that sounded exactly right. Curses.

"I think once we start examining the situation, we'll all realize that we're on the same side," he said as he moved to the door. "And that there's no reason to keep you here."

Ania glanced up at him before he left.

"You know," she began. When she had his attention, her gaze dropped to the ripples in her soup. "You separated us with the intention of breaking us but…" Her red-orange eyes hardened eerily. "We'll never talk. If you hope to start a dialogue, you'll put us together." She eyed him. "After all, what's the harm… if this is really just a misunderstanding…"

Quatre nodded to let her know he understood and locked the door when he left. Heero and Trowa were waiting for him outside the cell.

"You're undoing what we're trying to accomplish," Trowa said. Quatre sighed.

"I'm not trying to hide anything," he said, "but that doesn't mean it was necessary to mention. You'd be surprised what a little kindness and compassion can accomplish." He saw some microscopic change in Heero's expression and decided he wanted that to mean guilt. "The same goes for you, too, Duo," he said when the Gundam pilot appeared in the doorway.

"What the hell, Quatre," Duo balked. "I suppose I should've thrown roses out, maybe swept her off her feet? Would that be better for you?"

"You came up with that on your own," Quatre replied. Duo looked annoyed and his brow twitched.

"Hey, _you_ said… and I… quit cornering me!"

Quatre moved down the hallway and out of the detention center with Trowa, Heero, and Duo in tow.

"Did you find out anything?" Trowa asked.

"Not directly, but I believe we're actually allies." Quatre explained his theory. "We should put them back together; if they are given a chance to agree that we aren't their enemy, we might actually get some answers from them."

"You're manipulating them," Trowa said.

"Not at all. As I said earlier, I think this is a misunderstanding. The fastest way to find out is through a little bit of kindness and a little bit of trust."

"I hope you know what you're doing…" Duo mused and they made their way up to the bridge.

/

I looked up hopefully when I heard the door open and was relieved when Ania was escorted into the interrogation room we'd been in the day before. They took off her cuffs, like mine before, and, this time, we were left alone. I stood up as Ania ran over to me and we hugged each other tightly.

"I thought they'd hurt you," she whispered.

"I think they wanted to," I replied. I held her at arm's length. "I don't know how long we'll have together, so we need to talk. Did Quatre come to you last night?"

She nodded. "He said he believes we both sought the chip to learn of Operation: Shooting Star and carry it to an organized rebellion against OZ."

"They are Gundam pilots," I said. "Most of the rumors are clear they are against OZ. Quatre seems to think we're allies. He wants us to talk."

"I know. What do you think?"

"Well he _is_ right…" I said. "Maybe it's time to deal."

Ania nodded. "I don't really like that idea."

"I don't either… but it's better than sitting in these cells when there's still work to be done."

She agreed and looked up at the security camera in the corner of the room.

"Quatre!" she exclaimed. "We'd like to talk to you."

In ten minutes, we were surrounded by all five Gundam pilots and Ania's brow was twitching.

"I said _Quatre_," she exclaimed for the third time, like they hadn't heard it before.

"You were right," I said to the small, blond boy. "We've been involved with Serpent, a rebel group in the Rouya Kingdom, for the past three years. They contacted us with information that the details of Operation: Shooting Star were being held at Ohm Corporate headquarters in Telniv."

"We broke into Ohm and secured the chip. We were set to deliver it later that night," Ania explained.

"Serpent's headed by Roi LuGard, a lieutenant in service to Ms. Darlian," Quatre said. He glanced back at Heero. "It would've wound up in our hands regardless."

"How do we know you really work with Serpent?" Duo asked us.

"The safe word was starfish. Our code names are Python and Icarus."

"Python?" Duo asked.

"Like the programming language?" Ania said.

"Like the hacker who crippled the Sanshani database?"

She almost smiled. "Oh yeah…" She thought back to some private memory and chuckled. Ania and I exchanged glances, waiting for what would happen next.

"You did a good job infiltrating Ohm," Trowa remarked. "It was a smooth operation considering you had no power."

It was my turn to start twitching. Power came in all shapes and sizes.

"Power comes nicely packaged in a little thing called perspective," I said. He looked a little taken aback. Ania leaned closer to me.

"I think he was trying to compliment you," she whispered, tone edged in disbelief. Thank God I had her around to translate.

"You're Python? You're pretty good with computers," Duo told Ania. She just stared at him. I leaned over to her.

"I think he was—"

"I don't care," she snapped. I shrugged. Fair enough.

There was awkward silence for about forty-five extremely uncomfortable seconds.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"The Aria space station," Quatre replied. "I'm sorry for the confusion and the way you were treated. We can never be too careful. I hope that, from now on, we'll all be able to work well together."

_Wait, work together?_ I asked myself. That was a terrible idea; I was already getting heartburn.

"One thing remains a mystery," Trowa said. "Who are you?"

I glanced at Ania.

"My name is Ania Spice and this is my sister, Chona," she said. "What happens to us now?"

"We're returning to earth," Heero said. "We'll take you as far as Soixante and you're free to go."

"We can leave…" I wanted to confirm. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Wufei said. "We'll let Serpent know what happened. You can contact them later."

"You can return to Serpent and continue your work with them or," Quatre said, "you can remain and help us here."

Everyone in the room seemed a little uncomfortable—to put it lightly—with his suggestion.

/

After a hot meal, a shower, and a change of clothes, I felt a little more congenial. I shook out my shoulder-length brown hair and left it down to air dry then changed the bandages on my right arm. I snuggled into cargo pants with the legs tucked, my boots, a white tank, and my flak jacket. Ania was passed out on the bed when I left our room to explore Aria.

I was completely fascinated by the space station but worked hard to keep an unimpressed expression on my face. I worked my way into the hangar where dozens of mobile suits were stored. Mechanics were positioned everywhere doing fancy things with computers, fancy things with blowtorches, and even fancier things with what looked to be a heavy duty socket wrench.

I dodged the people who were actually working as I made my way across the cats. I'd never connected with Serpent's main force; Ania and I had operated like contracts—we were only contacted with private missions. Seeing everyone scattered across the space station, working and researching and fighting for the same cause, made me feel a little small, like a tiny cog in a bigger machine. It felt surprisingly nice.

The first flight of stairs I came across, I descended to the main floor and got closer to one of the mobile suits. It was really fascinating how someone could learn to pilot one of those things; I had to admit that I was curious but doubted I'd even get the chance. I glanced around to make sure no one was looking and got closer, climbed the ladder, and dropped into the cockpit.

The controls were complexly spread around me. I took hold of the handles of the piloting levers and got acquainted with the feeling. I was so distracted investigating the various buttons and knobs around me that I didn't notice someone cross the hangar and climb the ladder until they were right in front of me.

I swallowed my shriek when Heero appeared in the doorway.

"Oh shit, it's you… You, uh, surprised me," I said.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I was just lo—" I was interrupted by a hiccup. I pinched my mouth closed and waited. Hiccup! _Damn it!_ It was all his fault for startling me. Heero eyed me with a completely unreadable face and I caught myself wanting to know what he was thinking.

"Do you know how to pilot one of these?" he wanted to know. I shook my head.

"Uh, not real—hic-ly," I admitted, pushing my wet hair away from my face. He hesitated like he was debating with himself and then reached into the cockpit. I instinctively leaned back.

"The computer and engines have separate start mechanisms," Heero explained. He lightly tapped a blue button on the ceiling above my head. "That's the power boot," he said and moved to the turnkey next to it, "and that starts the engine."

"Oh… hic! Good to know…" I glanced at his face but averted my gaze to all of the buttons around me when he looked at me. "Do you really use all of—hic—these buttons?"

"Not all the time," he replied. "Eventually." He motioned to my right side. "How's your arm?"

"Oh, yeah, it's better," I told him, feeling like the conversation was growing really awkward. "You did a real good jo—hic—b… stitching… it up…" Gyah, those hiccups were embarrassing. "So, you pilot the Wing Zero," I said and let a hiccup pass. "That's your mobile suit?"

"Yeah."

"Can I see it?"

He relaxed out of his crouch and stood up. Guess not.

"I need to get back to work," he said. I nodded.

"Yeah, I should probably be getting back to Nia. She might've woken up." _Yeah right,_ I thought. _She was sleeping like dead fish, exed-out eyes and all._

Heero was the first to climb down and I quickly followed. I watched him cross the hangar and took one last look up at the mobile suit I'd just sat in.

"I could do that…" I mumbled then hiccupped. "It didn't seem so hard." _Liar, liar, pants on fire._

I shoved my hands into my flak jacket pockets and started to make my way back up to the room where Ania was still passed out. Something happening on the far end of the hangar caught my attention. I peered around several steel columns and resisted a jaw drop; a massive space ship was docking.

"That's a… battleship…" I muttered. Was there really such a magnificent thing out in space?


	3. Antilles

The Gundam boys escorted by a woman I'd heard called Sally Po and a few others passed Ania and me in the hall when we were coming back from lunch. We stopped and stared, wondering what the entourage was for. Quatre glanced back at us and motioned for us to follow and so, after meaningful glances at one another, we shrugged and took up the rear. _Are we going to see the queen?_ I wondered, feeling part of a diplomatic party—sarcasm to the max.

We rolled down the hallway to a stately set of double doors that opened up into an imperious study where a blond-haired woman stood behind a desk. While everyone strode in, Ania and I hung back at the door and I leaned on the threshold.

"Heero," the blond girl began. "Everyone, I'm glad to see you all."

"It's good to see you again, Ms. Relena," Quatre said, taking a slight bow with his greeting. "What brings you all the way to space?"

"I'm currently working on an Earth's Sphere and Colonial Peace Act. I'm on my way to the L8 cluster to garner support."

"Space is not safe for someone like you right now," Trowa said.

"So I've been informed."

"Please, Relena, rethink this," Sally said, as though she'd been saying it all day. Probably she had. "Wait until space becomes less hostile and we can spare the manpower to protect you."

"Thank you all, but I do not need protection. I believe we can find a peaceful solution to all of this fighting! What use would I be to my mission if I came with guards and guns? As a pacifist, I must let go of my fear and stand for a world without war by making myself an example."

I frowned, not noticing Ania's glance in my direction that said, "wait, she didn't just say what I think she did, did she?"

That's when the woman called Relena noticed us behind the rest. She smiled warmly at us.

"And who are these young ladies?" she asked. Everyone turned to look at us.

"This is Chona and Ania Spice," Quatre said. "They're newfound allies in the war against OZ."

"I am glad to hear it. My name is Relena Peacecraft of the Sanc Kingdom. I look forward to continuing to find a peaceful solution for our world with you."

"We aren't pacifists," I said and a sort of strange draw of breath sounded around the room.

"Excuse me?" Relena said.

"We aren't pacifists," I repeated. "We're soldiers who fight."

"I see," she said. "That's really too bad. I was hoping to find more sensibility in space."

Ania frowned and I could sense her alter-ego Bitchtastic rising to the surface.

"Sensibility?" Ania balked. "Is it so sensible to believe that all fighting can be stopped with words? We human beings are not so rash. War is the natural order of things and our only hope is to bring the fighting to an end—but we cannot avoid it."

"You must be joking. To say that the fighting must happen—"

But I knew where she was going with that and had to interrupt her.

"It is within human nature to fight, none of us exempt," I said, noticing Heero in my peripherals as he narrowed his eyes on me. "Aggression is the brick by which our very bones are built."

"I don't believe that."

"You don't have to. Gravity exists, no matter what you want to believe about it. Regardless, a fool is still a fool."

I noticed some of Relena's supporters frown but I didn't care. She was starting to piss me off; why was someone so naïve allowed to waltz in so self-importantly and stutter about peace?

"Then am I a fool for believing in such a world where we no longer fight? Is my hope and dream for a peaceful world without weapons really an illusion?"

"Yes," Ania said. A guard started toward her, but Relena held out her arm to stop her.

"You seem pleased with your answer," she said. "Do you really enjoy these long, miserable battles?"

"Of course not. And do I want this war to end? Yes. But to think that if we just try hard enough, we'll never fight again is naïve—no, foolish. We can hope for peace, strive to make it last—but it won't. The fighting will always start again. We can only hope to make the peace last as long as possible, the battles as short."

"That is exactly what I hope to change—the mentality that justifies meaningless killing."

"Justifies?" Bitchtastic echoed, but I interrupted her. I was hung-up on a different word.

"Meaningless?" I asked. "You think the killing is meaningless?" Oh hell, someone hold me back! "And the soldiers who do the killing? Are they emotionless, without humanity? And the ones who died? They died for nothing?"

"There's absolutely no reason why we must resort to violence. Any conflict can be resolved simply by talking it over!"

"There are many reasons why we resort to violence. You want to know, don't you?" I asked, pushing off of the doorframe. "You want to know why we must fight?"

"I certainly hope to understand one day."

"I'll tell you…" I walked toward her, shrugging out of my jacket.

"Your perfect world has come into being," Ania began, "—a world without war, without weapons. We return to square one—the last flesh weapon since the dawn of time: the human body."

As my sister spoke, I held out my arms and flexed my fists to show Relena the muscles curving under my flesh.

"The problem? When someone strong meets someone weak… Without weapons, the weak one can still be destroyed. Getting rid of the Gundams, mobile suits, guns—it just trades one medium of destruction for another."

"Why would someone ever need to use their own body in such a manner?"

"Because someone will always feel the urge to fight! Every man has it in him…"

"You're wrong," Relena said simply. "I have no desire to strike another, and neither do the people who believe as I do."

"Yes you do," I said and she frowned at me. "There's always a bully, Ms. Peacecraft. And against those who refuse to lift a hand, the bully will always be victorious. Here we are, princess, face to face in a disagreement. It would be so easy to solve this problem—I just have to eliminate you." I could feel the room tense at my statement. "Because we _are_ talking, and we aren't finding a solution, right? So I destroy you and end my problem, because you won't fight back." I leaned forward and whispered, "Do you want to know why people fight?"

She barely had time to respond when I wound my arm back and sent my fist flying at her face. Several guards sprang into action around her to restrain me and she was frozen in shock. Instead of giving in, I fought against their tight grips, flailing and swinging and kicking until I freed myself. I immediately went after Relena and someone punched me in the face.

That's when I stopped and the room suddenly became very still.

"That's why we fight. That's why you must fight," I said quietly. "To protect the ones you love, the world you live in, the ideals you cling to. A bully will always be there, and that is not something you can breed out of the gene pool by preaching an ideology. The only way to stop the fighting is to suppress the human spirit, to take away things that make us human. Soldiers understand this and make the sacrifice so others do not have to."

Relena just stared at me.

"These men are ready to fight to protect you," Ania said, "no matter how much they believe in peace. When they thought that you would be hurt, they leapt to your defense, and even resorted to violence. Are their actions meaningless?"

Relena glanced at the attendant who'd hit me and he bowed his head in shame.

"You shouldn't be so reckless with your life, princess," Ania continued, pulling Relena's attention back to her. "Since you're one of the few who can still guide others to peace, you shouldn't throw away your life by carelessly running through battles. Pacifists aren't bulletproof just because you don't believe in them. If you die, your ideas die with you—hope for peace dies in this bloody world consumed by battles."

I turned to go.

"You continue campaigning for peace, and we'll keep fighting for it," I said. "While you sit around and hope for peace, rest assured it will be soldiers like us who obtain it."

"War begets war," Relena said and I paused at the door. "But you do have a point and I will consider it on my way back to earth."

Sally and the others looked at her in surprise.

"I would best serve my dream of true peace by remaining on earth and helping guide others who believe as I do."

I shrugged and Ania and I walked away. The Gundam pilots stared after us and, one after the other, realized what Quatre had been talking about when he invited us to fight with them.

/

The ship that was taking us back to earth was called the _Elemental_ and it was on a mission to return important figures in the resistance to their kingdoms. It was to be protected by the Gundam pilots and Ania and I were allowed to come along. Ania and I had offered to help speed up our departure by assisting in the cargo bay; I'd spent the last hour loading up crates of who-knew-what into the hold while Ania flipped through clipboards of inventory.

"Hard at work, I see," Duo said when he came up behind Ania. She glanced back at him.

"Oh, it's you," she said, disappointed, and went back to her paperwork.

"Ouch. That's no way to treat a partner… partner."

"I'm not your partner," she said, focusing on the papers in one hand and the pen in the other. "Being allies does not mean we're partners. Partners work together. Allies fight for the same cause."

"Thanks for clearing that up."

"Anything to help the literately challenged," she mused, still mostly ignoring him. He snatched the clipboard out of her hand and held it out of reach.

"Look," he said. "We got off on the wrong foot. I get that. I'm sorry, okay?"

Ania chewed the inside of her lip for a minute as she discerned the sincerity in his eyes. She blew a strand of hair from her face and nodded.

"Alright," Ania gave in. "Sorry I got an attitude. We're allies now so I'll try to remember your one of the good guys." She reached for her clipboard but he inched it further back.

"And for slapping me?"

"You deserved it," she answered simply. When sparks of uncertainty buzzed between them, she managed a smile. Duo caved and handed her clipboard back.

"Probably you're right," he said. Ania was surprised. "See you around, Hotpants."

And he walked off. Ania chewed on the end of her pen as he crossed the hangar. _Stupid face,_ she thought. _He's got a nice-looking face. I almost bought into the charm._ Almost. Her gaze angled on his ass and then she threw the clipboard up in front of her face.

"Cargo," she said, staring at the black lettering. "Cargo, cargo, cargo, cargo…"

/

The flight to earth was long but uneventful. The Gundam pilots had kept with the ship every step of the way until we entered earth's atmosphere, and then the Sandrock Custom, Heavy Arms, and Shenlong broke off from the formation and flew off to only they-knew-where. Ania and I had remained quietly in our seats at the back of the passenger deck. The ship was full of people we didn't know—important people, people that we felt out of rank with.

They were the first ones to be delivered to safety and I imagined it was because they all had places to go; Ania and I were sort of directionless for the time being. We refueled at each stop and sometimes docked for the night. Dinner was usually formal and filled with etiquette lost on contract runners like us. The Gundam pilots, remarkably, fit right in. Even Duo with his loud mouth and mechanic cap could clean up well… even Heero with his frigid and inhuman persona took his bows and knew which utensil to start with.

"Final destination: Antilles," the pilot said over the cabin speakers when Ania and I were the last passengers. She held my hand and thought the same thing I was thinking: where the hell was Antilles and why were we going there?

"Captain?" I called. "What's in Antilles?"

"The Gundam pilots requested you be taken to Antilles where they are currently headquartered," he replied. Ania and I exchanged glances. What did that mean?

The _Elemental_ made the one last drop where Ania and I got off, empty-handed and without instruction. The landing strip was surrounded by trees. The crew could give us no information on where to go, how long to wait, or if someone would pick us up or not.

"Thanks for everything," Ania said and we both gave small waves as the ship shot off on its voyage back to space. "What now?"

"Look around," I guessed. "There must be something here aside from woods." Hopefully. It was getting dark and we'd be officially classified as lost _and_ screwed. "If we're lucky, we'll find something. I hope so, because I really have to take a piss."

We separated for the last few hours of light and met full-circle as the woods grew thicker with night.

"This sucks…" Ania muttered as I unscrewed the face off my watch. "They give orders to strand us here and no one even bothers to pick us up."

"Some allies," I agreed, picking at the cylinder tucked inside my watch; it was hard with bitten-down nails. Finally, it came up and I screwed the clock face back on.

"What are you doing?" she asked when I yanked the pen from behind her ear.

"It's a light," I told her, "from my diving watch. It's small but high-powered…" I barely noticed when I stuck my tongue out and squinted at the tiny button bottom-side of the light. I popped the pen cap, punched the button with the tip, and click!

"That was surprisingly clever…" Ania mumbled. I grinned and ripped the twine out of my flak jacket. It took a little bit of threading, but I managed to attach the light to the pen.

"Tada…" I sang quietly.

We made our way through the woods in the only direction we'd yet to cover; actually, that was a lie… there was a vast amount of directions needed covering, but we picked the one with the least underbrush and set to marching. It was nearing midnight when we finally emerged from the trees; a two-story industrial was planted at the forest edge. There was a military jeep parked out front.

"Looks like it was abandoned long ago," I muttered.

"Exactly. So why are there lights on?"

"Maybe we found the headquarters," I mused and started forward. Ania stopped me with her hand on my shoulder.

"We're not armed… we should be careful."

"You think we'll find something else in those walls."

"I think we should keep our eyes open."

I turned off the penlight and slipped it in her shirt pocket.

"Maybe you should stay here," I mumbled and gave a charming smirk. She rolled her eyes.

We crept across the yard, around the side of the building, and up to the only entrance: the front door. I nodded to my sister and she positioned herself on the opposite side of the portal. The hand signals we used were not military or industrial; they were our own. I signaled to her instructions to open it. She gripped the bolt-action lever and hoisted it back, yanking the heavy door open.

It opened up into a dark hallway with a staircase that went up. We silently ascended the steps and found ourselves outside another door. We ran through the same drill and Ania opened it.

I slipped inside like I actually had a gun to fire and was annoyingly not-so-surprised when I noticed three pairs of familiar eyes staring at me. Heero's Prussian blues looked up from the gun he was cleaning at the coffee table. Trowa's green gaze had abandoned the pages of his book in favor of me. Wufei's black eyes looked sharp and he was poised mid-chin-up. None of them seemed surprised.

Ania peeked from around the corner, realized the coast was more than clear, and came inside.

"What happened to you?" Trowa asked. I followed his gaze upward and realized he was staring at my hair. I reached up and felt the leaves and twigs nestled in a chaotic tangle of sweat, dirt, and hair.

"What do you mean? You told the pilot to drop us off in Antilles. They did alright. We were left there with no information, no directions, nothing," Ania exclaimed. Their eyes all turned to a chair in front of them; we couldn't see the contents of the chair as the back was facing us, but we heard the snoring. Ania and I inched forward and Duo's open-mouthed, slouched, and sleeping figure came into our sightline.

Ania looked like she burst a blood vessel in her head as she started rolling up her sleeve. Frankly, if someone was going to stop her, they needed to hurry, because I wasn't going to be the one to do it.

I ignored the loud shouts and turned to the other pilots.

"Can I use your bathroom?" I asked. They pointed to a hallway on my right. "Thanks," I said and followed the wall to the bathroom where I dug the forest out of my hair, took a three hour pee, and washed my face.

When I came back to the living room, Duo had paper stuffed up his nostrils and an icepack held to his head, Ania was sitting down with her arms and legs crossed, and Quatre was standing next to Trowa.

I took a moment to get a feel for the room. Two armless, burgundy-cushioned, steel-back couches were angled across from each other with a modern coffee table as a centerpiece. Two matching armchairs were positioned opposite across the table, just like the couches. Glass doors opened up to a balcony front-side of the building. There was a kitchen and dining space to my left and a rod-iron staircase on my right. The catwalk above spanned around the room and vault-like doors were installed every eight feet apart. A standard wooden door was at either end of the catwalk. The place looked industrial failed-to-go homemaker. It was livable, but a few homey touches could make it comfortable.

I rocked from the balls of my feet to my heels, wondering what I'd missed.

"Duo's sorry…" Quatre told me. I glanced at Duo, who yanked the icepack off his forehead and growled.

"Like hell I am!" he exclaimed.

"What's the deal?" I asked. "Why did you have us brought to Antilles? I thought we were going to Soixante."

"Serpent contacted Aria and explained you didn't plan to return to their service," Trowa replied. Ania snapped her gaze to me and I felt my face getting hot.

"Th-that's not what happened," I said, flustered. "I said I was considering shifting gears. That's all."

"The truth is, we could use people of your skills," Quatre explained and concentrated on Ania. "You're very skilled with computers and," he turned his attention to me, "you handle yourself well. Serpent explained the extent of their relationship with you and I'm not sure they're utilizing your true capabilities. If you truly stand against the Alliance, we could use your help."

I looked past Quatre to Ania and attempted to get a read on her feelings. Nada. I went from Duo to Wufei to Trowa and stopped at Heero. His eyes were intense and I didn't know what they meant.

I sighed and found something else to look at.

"Look, I'm not sure how we can really help you. Yeah, Nia is a frikkin' genius at the keyboard, but aren't you guys as well? What else can she offer you?" I wanted to know. Did they really know anything about us? It kind of pissed me off that they assumed so much. "And you don't even know if I can bring anything to the table or not."

"Well… there's one way to find out…" Wufei muttered. I raised one brow.

/

I lifted my wrists and blocked Wufei's kick, dropped to dodge the second, and ducked into an offensive attack. The question as to whether or not I was useful immediately led to combat prowess and Wufei had graciously stepped in as the first challenger; more like I challenged their sources and, before I knew it, a crazy Chinese man was screaming and kicking at me.

The dining room had been transformed into a mock boxing ring by shoving chairs against the wall and carrying the table into the living room. Wufei and I had been going at it for near half an hour and we were pretty evenly matched. I had to admit, his form was perfect and his style was clean. I had my work cut out for me keeping up with his speed, but I was really good at following moves; I had him figured out ten minutes into the fight.

Duo pulled his jacket off and stepped into the ring and so Wufei stopped his assault; we bowed to one another and I turned to my new opponent. I ran my arm across my forehead to wipe the sweat away. What was this? Some rite of passage? I reached back and yanked my shirt off, tossed it to Ania, and tightened the fighting wraps around my knuckles. Lesson: always wear a sports bra; you never know when you're warriorhood will be challenged.

Duo came at me but he wasn't nearly as fast as Wufei. I kept on the defensive and let him throw all of the punches; it was how I learned my challenger. He was too easy to read and, within minutes, I knew which move was coming next.

As his fist came at me, I dodged to the right and knocked his shoulder; he favored a left-right move and I knew I had an opening. He grunted and countered with a reverse swing, but I connected with his elbow. The kick to my gut was new, but his angle sucked and the force of the move was three times weaker than it would've been at prime position.

"Kick his ass," someone mumbled, and I recognized the voice to be Ania's.

I crossed my arms and blocked a series of kicks, waiting for the uppercut. When it came, I pulled my stomach in and tossed a punch at his nose. His arms were longer than mine so I had to get closer to make contact. I knew he would respond with his right knee, so I brought my left one up to block the jab and threw another punch at his nose. His head snapped back and I took the split second to plant my right knee in his gut. He doubled over and I got him in a headlock, but he used his long legs to flip the hold and my injured arm got hit. I winced, broke my vice, and backed up.

There came the roundhouse kick. I blocked and our knuckles connected a second later. The fight kept going this way, and Duo seemed amused that he was actually having trouble keeping up with me. I was drenched in sweat and my hair was sticking to my face.

Duo threw out a series of punches that I blocked. My arm was aching from the hit; I was pretty sure the stitches on my slice had been broken. I screamed, tired of the game, and decked him in the cheek twice. I ducked under his sweeping arms and rammed him in the gut, pushing him back. He punched my wound three times but I refused to stop. I slammed him into the wall as hard as I could, punched his gut, and kneed him in the face.

When I backed away, he slumped to his knee and held up his hand. Thank the stars for that one; my arm was throbbing. Glancing down at the gauze, I saw fresh blood seeping through. Damn.

"You're pretty good," Duo muttered and he smiled at me. I gave him an exhausted nod as if to say "you too" and concentrated on breathing. Duo got to his feet and Heero stepped into the unofficial ring. _You have got to be kidding me_, I thought.

"Come at me," he said. I glanced at the spectators and then back to him.

"Leave her alone, Heero," Duo said as he limped toward a dining chair. "She's taken enough beatings for one night." He collapsed into the chair and missed the look I shot him; who was he to be talking about being beat?

"Come at me," Heero said again. I licked my lips, brushed my hair from my eyes, and lifted my fists. _So be it,_ I thought. We circled each other twice and I waited for him to make his move but he didn't. He was waiting for me.

I obliged him.

I charged and threw a punch that he easily dodged. I threw up a sloppy offense due to my arm going numb and he evaded me effortlessly. Then it happened—a quick jab to my side. I sank into the blow and grunted. He backed up and waited for me to come again, so I did. After several attacks on my part, he laid two blows on me—one to my side again and another to my jaw. I stumbled back, tasted blood, and licked my lips again.

"You have a good eye," he said. "You let your opponent come to you. You assess their skill, track their moves, and break their technique down into predictions in just a few moments."

I took deep breaths, listening as he read my method like an open book.

"You're fast," he continued. "You have a good offense but your arm is slowing you down. Come at me again."

I wanted to ask him if he was crazy, but didn't feel like talking. I came at him, but he placed a swift kick to the side of my knee, knocking me down. A roundhouse came from nowhere and I would've been toast, but I threw up a block and used the momentum to spin under his kick and get back to my feet.

"You have quick reflexes," he added. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to hit him right then, but I made a silent vow that one day I was going to plant a hard one on him even if it cost me my life.

Heero relaxed out of his battle stance and I dropped my arms. Finally. I cut a glare at Trowa and Quatre.

"Don't get any bright ideas," I hissed. Trowa lifted his hands in surrender.

"I'll show you where you can clean up," he said and I followed him up the rod-iron staircase to the wooden door on the left; downstairs, I heard everyone putting the dining room back together.

The door opened up into a shower room so I slipped inside, locked the door, plucked a clean towel from a cabinet, and stripped. There were three showers and a large bath. I took the first stall and turned the knob with the H all the way to the right. The hot water felt great on my muscles but my stitches had completely ripped apart and the graze on my arm was oozing fresh blood. When I was done bathing, I ran the cut under cold water and rewrapped it with the old gauze.

There was a knock on the door so I wrapped the towel around myself and opened it an inch. Ania held up a bundle of clothes.

"Peace offering," she said. I nodded, scooped them up, and closed the door. Now I was in a predicament. I had no underwear. I picked mine up but they were drenched in sweat; I didn't wanna ride commando but hell would freeze over before I wore wet panties.

I pulled the gray sweat pants on, tightened them on my hips, and shrugged into the burgundy t-shirt Ania had brought me. I gathered my clothes into a bundle and left the shower room. I paused at the top of the steps when Heero zeroed in on my body.

"Are those mine?" he asked. I went wide-eyed and looked at Ania who turned to Duo.

"What's the big deal?" he wanted to know. "I didn't know whose they were. I just grabbed something."

_What's the big deal?_ I thought. _The big deal is I'm going commando in Heero Yuy's sweat pants!_ But damn they were comfortable. I let my wet hair cover my red face and was thankful I didn't have to wait too long in awkwardness. Quatre guided me down the catwalk to an open door.

"You can sleep here," he said and I stepped inside.

There was a cot against the right wall, a full shelf and a half-dresser on the left, and a small alcove in the back with a floor window tucked inside. _Wow,_ I thought. _Maybe they still think we're prisoners…_

"Thanks," I told Quatre and dropped my dirty clothes and boots by the door. The blond Gundam pilot went to the railing and looked down at Ania.

"Miss," he said. "Would you like to see your room?"

She nodded and climbed the steps.

"Call me Ania," she said. "Or Nia for short."

"Nia?" Duo echoed.

"You call me ma'am!" she snapped; probably because her stomach fluttered a little when he said her name, she felt intense violence toward him. He was a jerk with a handsome face. _Cargo_, she thought. _Cargo, cargo, cargo, cargo…_

Quatre opened a door a few down from mine and let Ania in. With the exception of furniture rearrangement, it resembled mine in every way. The cot looked only a little more comfortable than dirt.

"No, no, no, no, no," she said. Her eyes were nearly gathering tears. "Do you know what my year has been like thus far?" she asked, but it was rhetorical. "I slept on a rickety couch for three months, dirt and freshly mowed grass and wood chips for two weeks, back to the couch, and then a concrete cell thanks to you. There was an air mattress, a hard plane chair, and then I traipsed in the woods for five hours. I wanna sleep on King-sized fluffy fluff! I _need_ some King-sized fluffy fluff…"

Quatre looked both bewildered and ambushed. Her crazed expression wasn't one to be meddled with so he turned around and shuffled off, disappeared, and returned a few minutes later with a mattress pad and hopeful smile. Although the mattress pad was nowhere near King-sized and its fluffy fluff had long-since defluffed, it was better than a plain, old cot, so she took it into her arms, nodded a thank-you to Quatre, and closed her bedroom door. She ignored her stomach's cries for food, kicked off her ankle boots, set up the mattress pad, and dropped onto the cot.

"Damn," she muttered, staring at the ceiling. "What are we doing here?"

Would they really stay and help the Gundam pilots? The thought of going back to Serpent seemed both practical and boring. Going back to Serpent felt real and everything else a dream, but here they were in the Gundam hideout in Antilles being asked to stay on for the long haul.

She would be a part of something this way and possibly be able to make a real difference in the war. _What are we doing, Chona?_ she thought. A new question came to mind: _what's the right thing to do?_

The answer she came up with was both scary and exciting.

/

The door to my room creaked open and Heero appeared in the doorway with a medkit just as I was peeling away the gauze to check on the bleeding. Damn, caught red-handed. He came in and sat next to me on the bed. I pulled the t-shirt sleeve up before he asked and let him clean the graze, sew it back up, and redress it with cotton and gauze. I really wanted to find something intelligent to say, but all I could manage after minutes of mental stammering was,

"I'll uh… get these back to you tomorrow…" I plucked the t-shirt. He didn't reply, only flicked his eyes up at me then went back to his work. When he was done, he packed up the kit and stood.

"Sorry about your jaw," he said. I licked the tiny cut on my lip.

"Sure," I said.

"You should ice it."

"I heal quick." I shrugged one shoulder. He stared at me and I got the feeling I was being assessed again. I really had no idea what he was thinking, which really bothered me. He left without any other words and I watched him shut the door. Bang. _That was kind of cold,_ I thought. _Or is it my imagination?_

I sunk into the cot and pulled the blanket over me. I snuggled into the clothes I wore. They felt nice. They smelled good. They smelled like… laundry. Laundry, not Heero, because if I liked them because they smelled like Heero that would be weird. Right? But if I just liked the scent, that would be normal, too, no matter what the scent was, right?

I yanked the blanket over my head and counted the seconds until I went to sleep. I got to three.


	4. Leo

The sound of thunder vibrated into Ania's subconscious and her eyelids flipped open. She stared at the ceiling for several quiet minutes until another rumble of thunder spun her out of bed and carried her to the window. It looked dreary out—a bleak sky washing the forest in gray. She couldn't find any evidence of rain, but it was on its way.

It was cold in her room and so she zipped her hoodie up and padded out into the main area. She leaned over the rail and took a census. Trowa was reading in one of the chairs and Duo was tinkering with some piece of machinery, taking up a whole couch and most of the coffee table. The door at the end of the cats—the one opposite the shower room—was slightly ajar and artificial light was leaking from within. She leaned back and saw the blond and brown backs of Quatre and Heero's heads at computers.

"What are they…" she mumbled to herself.

"So you're awake," Duo said, grabbing Ania's attention. "You're kind of scary in the morning. Don't girls usually… you know…" He motioned around his face. Ania put her left fingers to her corresponding eyeball to stop the twitch; it was way too early in the morning for the twitch.

"I've had a long week…" she growled and then scanned the rest of the house for the others. No sign of Wufei or her sister. She checked my door and noticed it was still closed.

Ania made her way downstairs and into the kitchen where she began her investigation of the fridge. Sausage links, milk, butter… An idea was forming. She opened the nearest cabinet—glasses. The next one—plates. She reached for the pantry. Aha, pancake mix.

Duo popped his head in the kitchen.

"What's all the clanking around?" he asked.

"I'm cooking my breakfast," she replied without looking at him. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the doorframe, a bemused smirk on his lips; he watched her pull out the pancake mix and go hunting through the cabinets for a mixing bowl and through the drawers for a spoon.

"Cooking…" he repeated.

"Yeah. Cooking. Action form of the verb 'to cook', meaning to prepare food by heat, as by boiling, baking, or roasting." She didn't use a measuring cup when she poured the pancake mix.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Ania stopped and twisted around to look at him.

"Excuse me?"

"C'mon… a pampered girl like you?" he said. "I'd be surprised if you could boil water."

Uh oh. Big mistake. Challenging Ania's ability to cook was like challenging the notion of gravity on earth; it didn't happen.

"Oh… I boil water," she muttered. "My boiled water is like boiled gold. You can't get better water than my water. _King's_ come from miles to have a taste of my water."

Duo shrugged.

"You're not even measuring. You're just dumping things around like anything is fine."

"I don't need to measure! I have an innate sense of measurement. I know how much of what needs to go where just by looking, by feeling."

"I'd like to believe you, but—"

"Sit!" she snapped. "I'll prove it." And she turned to the bowl and dumped the whole box of mix inside. Duo grinned and went back to his tinkering. Score one for Team Duo; he'd officially conned breakfast out of the new girl.

/

When I woke up, my head was pounding and my body ached. I tried to touch my temple but my right arm wouldn't move an inch off the mattress without making me feel like I was dying. I frowned and tried to sit up. No good. My gut was bruised and my side was throbbing from where Heero had jabbed it.

_Sonuva bitch,_ I thought. _They've bedridden me!_ Well, I'd show them. I gritted my teeth, did three side-to-side prep moves and then rolled off the bed. My knees hit the wood floor and I swallowed a squeal. Okay, that was a bad idea. I used my left arm to pull me to my feet, which were freezing. What did they keep this place at? Fifty?

I went to the alcove and crouched into it to inspect the outside world. Dingy and thunder-rumbling. Hooray, more rain. That probably had a big effect on the temperature. I wriggled my toes to bring the feeling back, yanked the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders, and was lured from my room by the smell of sausage and pancakes with a scent signature to none other than my dear sister.

Duo was knees up in his arm chair and faced the wrong way. He was staring at the kitchen and I was pretty sure drool was seeping out the corners of his mouth. Trowa, I noticed, kept glancing up from his book toward the smell of the food.

"Who let you cook again, Nia?" I asked, padding down the staircase and into the kitchen. She whipped around and smiled.

"How'd you know I was at the helm?"

"Are you kidding?" I balked. "I can smell the butter a half a mile away."

She turned back to the stove and flipped a pancake.

"They didn't believe I could cook," she said. "You know how it gets to me when they think I can't cook."

I rolled my eyes. "You were tricked into making breakfast, you know that, right?"

She hesitated her flipping for only a second and I knew she'd already realized it. I shrugged and gently elbowed her arm.

"Can we talk?" I asked. She took the last pancake off the skillet, buttered it, and turned off the stove.

"Sure," she said. "The biscuits have a few minutes left on them." When she turned around, her killer eye was out; Duo fell off his chair and, I have to admit, I was a little startled myself. "No… touchy…" she hissed. "You come near these pancakes and sausage before I get back, and I'll know."

A thumbs up came from behind the chair and she and I walked out to the balcony. I tightened the blanket around my shoulders and wriggled my toes some more, wishing I had a pair of socks, at least. It was cool and breezy out; the rain was definitely not far away.

"What's up?" she asked, leaning back on the railing. "Blue eyes today. Thinking much?"

My hazel eyes usually reflect the dilemma of my being at the time; blue meant thoughtful and sometimes troubled, gray stood for anger, and green generally represented peace or some imaginary state of "normal", whatever that meant. The truth is, they just couldn't make up their mind what color they truly wanted to be. Indecisive bastards.

I sighed and clanked my blanket-covered fists together. I wasn't sure how I was going to tell her I'd made the decision.

"About our mission," I began, and I noticed a change in her expression and her body shifted uncomfortably. "I've made a decision I believe to be the best, and I think—"

"I think we should stay," she interrupted me, and I paused. So she felt that way, too. Perfect! It saved me having to say it, too. Of course, her blurting it out like that gave me a perfect opportunity to blame the entire thing on her.

"I… you do?" I asked, pulling on my "inconceivable" face.

"If we stay, our skills will actually be put to use against the Alliance. We'll be a part of the resistance instead of just blips of help along the way. I don't think we're the 'grains of salt to tip the scale' or anything but I do think Quatre's right—we have skills to offer their cause. We have a real chance to fight OZ…"

_Wow,_ I thought. Our speeches to each other were near identical. But, oh right, I was blaming it on her. I sighed and stared out at the gaunt wilderness and pretended to think it over.

"It'll be dangerous," I said.

"It always is," she replied. Her eye suddenly began twitching. "Get away from that sausage!" she screamed.

"Damn it!" Duo yelled from inside. I still hadn't figured out how she _always_ knew; I'd decided she had magical powers.

"Fighting with them will be a whole new level of war—a level we've never experienced before…"

"I know," she said. "I'm ready…"

I eyed her only a second, not wanting to give up the fact that I really agreed with her from the beginning. She could see through practically anything, including 12-foot cement blocks.

"Are you sure you want to say?" I asked and she nodded vigorously.

"As sure as any decision I've ever made… I think this is the right thing to do."

I sighed dramatically again.

"Man…" I muttered. "Fine. Fine, let's stay and be small cogs instead of the whole friggin' machine."

She grinned and put her head on my shoulder. I curled my bottom lip up to avoid smiling and laid my head on top of hers.

The oven beeped and we went back inside. Duo was looking tormented at his chair as he watched Ania shuffle about the kitchen, preparing plates of food. I nudged him with my foot.

"Hey, aren't you going to clear your junk out? There's no room for people to sit," I told him.

"It's not junk," he said and started cleaning up the bits of machinery and tools he was using to tinker. "These are all prime parts that just need a little bit of tweaking."

I nodded like I got it, but I really didn't. I helped him move everything to the dining room and went upstairs. I knocked on the door where Heero and Quatre were.

"Uh, breakfast is ready," I said. They looked at me and didn't say anything; Heero seemed blank and Quatre looked pleasantly surprised. Seeing Heero reminded me I was in his pants without any underwear and I felt completely embarrassed. "Erm, someone challenged Ania's cooking ability and—poof—food everywhere so… that's all." I ducked out before I felt any more stupid. They followed and, when we got back downstairs, Wufei was walking in.

We all sat down around the coffee table with plates full of sausage, pancakes, and biscuits. The syrup got passed around and everyone started digging in.

"This is delicious," Duo groaned behind mouthfuls of food.

"Very," Quatre agreed.

"You're an excellent cook," Trowa said. Wufei and Heero just ate silently; how unexpected.

Ania smiled at their compliments but kept glancing at me. I mind-communicated a _what?_ at her but she just kept looking at me. Then she cleared her throat and everyone looked up; they saw her looking at me, assumed I was the one who'd done it, and waited expectantly. I was ambushed. It was so unfair. I mentally stammered, dropped my fork with a clank, and was a little pleased when Ania, startled, choked on her pancake.

"So I have something I'd like to say…" I began and did some more mental stammering. _I can't believe I'm gonna do this,_ I thought. _This was all her idea…_ Great, now I was trying to convince myself. "Ania and I agreed that… the best way to fight the Alliance… would be to help you all here."

Quatre smiled sincerely; it felt private and intimate, as if it was a comfort he was sending just to me. I sighed inside and felt a little less nervous.

"That's all, so…" I didn't finish and went back to eating. Ania did, too, like she was afraid they'd associate her with the decision. Looking back on it, I'm not sure why it caused us such nervousness; then again, looking back on Heero and Wufei, I'm starting to remember.

The thunder rumbled in the background and then the rain came. It rained like that for days.

/

In the coming months, the Gundam pilots each took time out of their own jobs to help us. Naturally, the first thing we demanded was to go shopping; there was no way I was going commando in Heero's clothes anymore. After we were allowed to pick up a pile of girly things, times got easier. I know the boys were, at first, a little uncomfortable living with two girls, but they got used to it quickly. The less mature members of the crowd still had ridiculous reactions to finding a lady's lingerie in the washroom; surprisingly, Heero was one of those people. Ania and I agreed it was a bit embarrassing to know our bikini-cuts, thongs, and boyshorts were being handled by manly hands, but there was just no way we were going to suffer through granny panties. In the beginning, they kept giving us awkward glances like they knew she was wearing the lacey thong or that I was wearing the striped boyshorts with the little bow. It was kind of creepy and discomfiting, but eventually… it stopped.

It wasn't just the underwear; it was the clothes, too. When it was just us, Ania and I wore what was comfortable around the house—shorts and tank tops, pants and sport bras, t-shirts and panties. We clearly realized that wasn't going to cut it here; it was distracting. Seriously, though, no one complained when they ripped of their shirt or anything, so I'm not sure why it was such a big deal for us to show a little stomach. Anyway, I'm rambling.

The weeks following the shopping escapade were concentrated on work. The boys really focused on teaching Ania new ways to interact with the computer, and she wound up teaching them some stuff, as well. I did a lot of observing and actually learned a thing or two from it. I was wondering what my place in this little gang was; I could fight, but where would that put me?

Wufei and I sparred nearly every day and he taught me his form of martial arts. I was getting faster and stronger. I didn't know for what until much later.

Ania continued to cook and, with a should-be-professional chef at the helm, groceries mysteriously filled the cabinets overnight and scribbles of dish-wish-lists were slipped under her door—metaphorically speaking since nothing could actually be slipped under the door.

It was mid-summer when the ice broke between her and Duo. Heero and Trowa were off on some mission, Quatre was visiting his friends in the desert, and Wufei and I were sparring in the woods.

Ania was in the computer room working on hacking a database for Heero and Trowa when Duo shouted for her.

"Hey, Hotpants!" he yelled. Ania put her fingers to her eye again.

"It's too early for this…" she growled to herself and pushed away from the computer. She tossed the door open and came to the rail. "I told you not to call me Hotpants! What do you want?"

Duo's jaw dropped. She was lounging over the banister in high-cut sweat shorts and a tiny tank top. Her legs looked a mile high from way up there and her cleavage measured a good six inches; well, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but he wasn't thinking clearly. Her hair was twisted into a long braid and fell over her shoulder.

Duo turned away, unable to speak. He caught his reflection in the object he'd been tinkering on and saw his cheeks were bright red.

Ania raised her brows impatiently.

"What?" she asked again.

"Your hair…" he stuttered. "It's braided!"

"So? It's hot out. That's what you do with long hair; you braid it. It keeps you cool. Funny, I notice your hair is braided… could it be for a similar reason?" Ania wasn't feeling too chipper; in fact, she was armed with sarcasm and dangerous. "What did you need?"

He glanced back at her and pointed to the object in his hand.

"I need your help," he told her. She crossed the catwalk, descended the steps, and sauntered over. "The size of this arbulator is awkward and I can't hold it and keep the pressure bolt in while I loosen the screw in the ventilation—"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it," she said. "You can't get the fibulator in the whatsiscallit without a hand. Where do I press?"

He motioned for a bolt and she held it down.

"Thanks," he said, squinting and sticking his tongue out as he went to work loosening the screw. Ania chuckled. He briefly glanced at her. "What?"

"What is that?" she asked and mimicked his facial expression—one eye squinted and tongue out. "My sister does that, too, whenever she's working on some sort of gadget. I've never understood how that helps."

Duo suddenly felt hyperly self-conscious. He'd never noticed Ania to be this sexy before and here she was, barely a foot from him, in all of her sudden femininity, a slight bend in the knee and at her waist adding to the voluptuousness of her curves, and she was making fun of him. He pulled his tongue back into his mouth, finished loosening the screw, and set the object on the coffee table.

"Thanks," he said again, wiping his grease-monkey hands off on a rag.

"No problem," she replied. For X-Ray-Eyes-Ania, she didn't notice his awkward behavior. So much for seeing through 12-feet of concrete; she couldn't see the bottom of a kiddie pool when the pool was Duo Maxwell. She picked up one of the random gadgets on the table and turned it over in her palms. "What are you doing with all this stuff?"

"I'm fixing it," he told her. "I'm a Sweeper, that's what I do. I fix things."

Ania was a bit surprised. She decided she had no idea what she was holding so she tossed it to Duo.

"Isn't the God of Death supposed to be leaving a trail of destruction, not reconstruction?"

He smirked.

"Can't he do both?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Don't be so full of yourself. You can't be both the God of Death and the God of Restoration. It doesn't work like that." She motioned to the machine in his hands. "So what is that?"

"This? This is a radial dinonytri."

"A radio-what?"

"A _radial_ dinonytri. It goes in the wrist of mobile suit units. The di prefix is for the two notches just there." He ran his pinky along the sides of the marks and Ania leaned in close to get a better view. He stopped his gaze from going down her shirt and concentrated on her face like a gentleman would. The face would be fine, he thought, because her face quite often annoyed the piss out of him; only her face was looking surprisingly beautiful that day. Her red-orange eyes looked genuinely interested and her lips seemed glossy and slightly pouty.

_Oh boy,_ he thought. _I'm in trouble._

"Ah, I see it," she declared.

"I know it seems small but, without this piece, the wrist functions of the suit would never work," he explained. "They can get damaged easily from the outside; if they take physical hits, they're no good. But most of the time, a power overload stalls their wheels. It's pretty easy to fix and the part ain't cheap. The _Peacemillion_ scavenges discarded mobile suits for parts like these. I fix them if their circuits are fried, and I jimmy-rig them to allow for better friction and air flow during high-stress performance."

Ania was smiling at one corner of her mouth.

"That's… pretty cool," she said sincerely. He pointed at the radial dinonytri.

"You wanna learn?"

She didn't answer right away. Part of her was shocked that she and Duo were actually having a civil conversation. Part of her was scared of them getting along well. Most of her wanted to learn; most of her was enjoying the moment.

"Uh, sure," she replied and sat down at the end of the couch next to him. "What do I do?"

Duo leaned closer, passed her the tools and the gizmo, and began walking her through the process—step by step. Ania found him to be a very patient and thorough teacher; surprise, surprise. It didn't take her long to figure out, and he praised her when she had officially fixed the dinonytri.

"Perfect," he said. "I don't even have to do anything to it. Someone with a busted mobile suit will be happy." He put it back on the table. "You've got a knack for tinkering." He smiled and looked at her. Their eyes met and Ania felt goosebumps on her flesh in spite of how hot it was in the house.

He had a very attractive smile that caused his Cobalt-colored eyes to shine with vibrant life. She tried to think about cargo, but her mind was blank. _C'mon, say something, Ania,_ she commanded herself.

"Well, if you teach me more, I could probably help out with more things."

Duo nodded and leaned back in his chair. "I think I could do that. I could always use more help."

"You want lunch?" Ania asked, suddenly getting to her feet.

"Sure—"

"Great!" And she speed-walked into the kitchen. Duo sighed out the tension inside when she left.

"What was that?" he asked himself.

/

When Heero and Trowa's mission ended successfully, only Heero returned to the compound. He left a day later without the Wing Zero and no word as to where he went. Trowa carried out another set of orders, met up with Quatre, and they underwent a task aided by IT support from home. Ania spent days in front of the computer hacking away at military technology. It was also Wufei's turn to leave.

"Keep up your training," he told me as he climbed into his Gundam Shenlong. I promised I would and I really meant it. Well, okay, I would train but maybe not as hard as he had me training unless it involved a tub of ice-cream and the biggest spoon I could find.

/

It was twilight when Heero returned again. Ania was upstairs at the computers, manning her station like a true champion. Duo and I were downstairs with the lights out and the glow of the TV on our skins. We had a large tub of triple chocolate chunk with added globs of cookie dough between us and massive cooking spoons. The flick was some b-movie action thriller and we spent most of the time spitting ice-cream onto ourselves as we made fun of the actors that should've stuck to waitressing, explosions, and bad dialogue, and got brain freezes.

"Wait, wait…" Duo said, throwing out his arm like a friggin' linebacker. "Did that guy just get his head blown off?"

I sat up, sucking on the tip of my spoon since that was as much as I could really get my mouth around.

"I didn't see. I was watching Davis take two in the face. I've been waiting on him to get shot the whole movie."

Duo picked up the remote and rewound it.

"I think he got his face blown off," he said.

"Who?"

"Martin."

"No way!"

"Seriously…" He stopped rewinding and we both leaned in closer. The action on the screen escalated. "Watch, watch. Here it comes… in the back, on the left…"

We stared, entranced, and then BAM! Martin got his face blown off.

"OOOOH!" we yelled simultaneously, falling back into the cushion of the couch.

Heero walked in and was surprised to find us vegging out.

"What?" I asked when he gave me that disappointed gaze. He should've been running the United Earth's Sphere Alliance, the way he wielded guilt. "Wufei's gone for awhile and I needed a break."

Duo leaned over the back of the couch and handed Heero an extra spoon; it was one with slits cut in it for draining but we figured it would work fine if you ate the ice-cream fast enough.

"Join us, Heero," Duo said. "We've got a back-up tub in the freezer and plenty of b-movie garbage coming up next. Let's see, we have… _The Last Belvadeer _up in just twenty minutes. It's a romance-thriller or something, and I'm sure it's got plenty of juicy material to mock."

I stared at Heero and hoped it was too dark for him to see my face. Truth is, I really didn't want to watch a romance movie with Heero, no matter how funny it was. That was a thing I reserved for people I wasn't nearly so afraid of. Imagine sitting there while some gross and cheesy couple slobbered all over each other with Heero's stoic and murderous capabilities looming a few inches away. It would just be wrong. Sure, with Duo, it was hilarious; but Duo was human. Heero I was still debating on.

Heero ignored Duo's request to join the party and motioned to me.

"Follow me," he said and walked outside. Duo and I looked at each other.

"He's just jealous," Duo decided. I took one last, longing look at the ice-cream and surrendered my spoon to Duo. "What, you're not actually going, are you?"

"Take good care of her 'til I get back," I said. "I'm trusting you with this. Don't let me down!" And I hopped over the back of the couch, snatched a hoodie and my favorite cap from the back of a dining chair, and followed Heero to the door. Duo shrugged and ate from both spoons while he finished the flick. He glanced back.

"But did you see the—?" And he made a motion like his face was getting ripped to shreds.

"Oh, I totally saw! It went everywhere!" I replied. "It was like, bleh… like, I think I saw lips on Remmy's jacket."

Duo's mouth dropped and he rewound again. I went outside.

The sun was sinking into an ocean of light on the horizon behind the trees. The sky was illuminated with fast-fading yellow-orange and grapefruit red blotches. The bellies of the clouds were lavender and baby blue stippled by sunflower gold and green.

A small breeze put a chill under my skin. The days were hot but the nights were cold. I snuggled into the hoodie, quickly crammed my feet in Converse and laced them up, and put the army green cadet cap on my head. I followed Heero around the side of the building and through the path in the woods to the small clearing where the Gundams were concealed. I was really surprised to see a new mobile suit perched between Heero's Wing Zero and Duo's Death Scythe Hell.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A Leo," he replied as we got closer.

"Where'd it come from?"

"I stole it."

"For what?"

He nodded to the open cockpit.

"Go ahead and get in," he said. I was really surprised but gave in and climbed up. He followed up and stood in the doorway as I settled into the chair. "Turn on the computer," he said. I punched the button he'd shown me back on the Aria during a time that felt years in the past. The system booted up and the glow from the console lit up my face.

Heero talked to me about the controls of the mobile suit until long after the sun had set. I barely noticed the shift in time except that it got darker; learning the controls of a mobile suit was way better than any b-movie flick and triple chocolate chunk, even with the added cookie dough.

The last lesson he taught me for the day was the flight system. No engines, just computers. I was a fast learner and caught on quick. When we sealed the cockpit and made our way back to the house, I nudged his shoulder with my own.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked him. "Why are you teaching me how to pilot a mobile suit?"

"Because I think you can handle it," he said. "You have fast reflexes and an eye to see what's coming before it happens. Your predictions about combat are based on intuition, and your instincts are good."

I know it was just a bunch of technical jargon he was spewing at me, but I felt really proud. To be honest, I felt a little special, too.

"Wufei has helped hone your abilities," he said. _Aha,_ I thought. _I knew Wufei had a motivation other than camaraderie._ Heero continued. "Keep training and you'll be strong enough to take this suit to space."

"To space?" I blurted before my brain realized my mouth was moving and we stopped. "To… outer space? I don't know that I can… Are you sure?"

He took a step closer to me.

"I think you can take that suit to space, and straight to the battlefield."

I suddenly felt nervous and excited. My mind was so lost in the fantasy of me in space that I didn't notice Heero reach out to me until his fingertips touched my skin. I jumped inside and glanced down.

"There's not even a scar," he said, investigating the spot where the wound I'd received when we first met used to be.

"I heal fast," I reiterated.

We walked back to the house in silence. Inside, Duo was passed out on the couch with the ice-cream tub in his arms. The TV was glowing bright blue with the end of the tape. I shut the TV off and put the ice-cream in the freezer.

The light to the computer room was off and the monitors were out. Ania had gone to bed, too.

"Guess they didn't wait up," I mumbled as Heero and I ascended the staircase.

"Tomorrow, we'll continue the lesson," he promised. I took my cap off and sat it on top of his messy brown hair.

"Sure thing, captain," I said and smiled. "Goodnight."

He didn't wish me a good night back, but I didn't wait around for it, either. I went into my room without looking back, threw on some pajamas, and crawled in bed with the anxiousness of the next morning fluttering around in my gut. I felt like a kid waiting on Christmas morning.

/

The next day, my lessons started early. I beat Heero to the Leo and was running over everything he'd taught me the previous night when he showed up. He wasn't wearing my hat and I stuck my tongue out at the fact. Oh well. When he climbed up to the cockpit, I noticed he had on the red shirt I'd once worn. I went googly-eyed for half-a-second and focused on the controls to prevent myself from wanting to sniff him and see if it was the laundry detergent or Heero that smelled so, uhm, comforting. He tugged a hat onto my head and I smiled under the bill.

The long, summer days I spent with Heero Yuy started then.


	5. Secret

The summer months went by really fast for us. Ania spent her days at the computer or at the coffee table with Duo learning the art of salvage. I spent every day and every night with Heero in the Leo. After a month, I was able to fly all over earth; not that I did. I never went far from base and returned every evening with the exception of one overnight escapade to the north.

Heero had me learning ranged and close-quarters combat by the second half of the summer. I felt like I was improving and he confirmed that I was doing well. The idea of going to space still scared me and I was still looking forward to it. Of course, Heero never gave any indication of when… and I never asked.

Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei stayed away all summer. Because of that, the closeness of the Gundam family felt dissipated. Heero and I were doing our thing and Ania and Duo were doing their thing. Ania and I barely had time together.

At least, we didn't until the end of summer came and Duo saluted a farewell with a promise to be back in a few weeks. He packed up the Death Scythe and took off on a mission only he knew the extent of. Heero continued to train me until Duo contacted him a week later and requested help. Then, Heero left and Ania and I were alone.

/

I was in my room, quickly getting dressed. I'd overslept and could already feel Heero's guilt-giving aura beaming across the earth from wherever he was. I wiggled into dark jeans, a white tank top, and pulled a gray- and red-striped knit sweater over my head. I grabbed a pair of fuzzy, gray socks and ran out the door, hopping down the catwalk while I put them on.

"Morning," Ania said. She was perched on the couch, one foot tucked under her butt and the other hanging over the couch. She had tiny tools trapped between her teeth and some important machinery in her greasy fingers. "Breakfast is on the counter."

I poked my head in the kitchen, snatched a meat bun off the paper plate, and ran for my Converse high-tops.

"Thanks," I said, taking large bites of the hot, rice-wrapped meat ball as I struggled into my sneakers. I hated undoing laces and, quite often, took more time trying to cram my foot into the shoe than it would to just loosen the laces. I know it didn't make sense, but principle got in the way sometimes.

"You heading out to the Leo?" Ania asked as I got into my shoes and yanked a scarf off the back of a kitchen chair. I twirled it around my neck and zipped up a hoodie.

"Uh-huh," I replied, racing for the door. Ania tossed her gizmo on the table, spit her tools out, and leapt off the couch.

"Hang on!" she exclaimed. "I'm coming, too!" She grabbed a jacket and practically ran into her boots on the way out the door. We power-walked through the woods as she explained why she was coming out with me. "I think I finally understand the structure," she said. "I know Heero would probably pitch a fit if I asked to take time out of your training to examine a suit up close, but I know they'd never let me take apart a Gundam, and since Heero isn't here, I—"

"Waih, waih," I mumbled around rice and meat. "Nyu wanna take va Leo aparh?"

"Parts of it…" she replied in a sing-songy way. My bad-idea radar was already going off. I swallowed my mouthful of food.

"What if you don't understand the structure and break something or can't put it back together?" I asked, panicking. Oh God, heartburn… acid reflux… panic attack. Something! I needed an Alka-Seltzer.

"That really is very unlikely," she said as we approached my mobile suit. "More likely is that I'll actually help you."

I took the time needed to finish my breakfast to think over her request. I stared at the mobile suit and then her pleading, selfless eyes; she just wanted to help me. I sighed. That was bullshit, and her puppy-dog eyes didn't faze me; it was the killer eye that she'd break out if I said no.

"Okay," I agreed. "Might as well. I think I should learn the mechanics of my suit, too, so helping you will be beneficial."

We spent nearly an entire week examining and tampering with different parts of the Leo and Ania was right—she was able to help me. She made a few adjustments that freed up the joint motion range nearly 23%; my mobility went through the roof. In exchange for the improvements, I began teaching her how to fly. She figured it was just another way to better familiarize her with the controls.

"If I know how to fly it, I'll know how to better enhance it someday."

/

Fall was fast-coming and fast-going. Toward the end of the season, we found ourselves kicking leaves around the front yard, digging a fire pit, and building a blazer. Ania fixed hot chocolate with extra marshmallows while I got the flames going. By the time the sun went down, it was freezing out and we were bundled up in coats and scarves, huddled near the fire, and sipping hot cocoa like it was the last saving grace.

"Sometimes, I believe them when they say chocolate is the cure for cramps," I announced and sipped my drink.

"They say that?"

"Sure do. Truth is, it's really only dark chocolate—pure dark chocolate."

Ania blinked. "But you're drinking milk chocolate."

"I know. Bummer, right?"

She laughed and we sipped in silence for another couple minutes.

"Did you imagine it going this way?" she asked me after we'd gotten warmer.

"Imagine what this way?"

"Being here… with the Gundam boys…"

I shook my head.

"No way," I replied, chuckling. "I was pretty sure we'd get shipped off to some big time resistance camp where we'd fade into the chaos of war."

"That or be plugged into Aria," she mumbled. I agreed. "I miss them, you know," she began, fingernails picking at a pull in her sleeve. "Kind of…"

"Yeah… Me, too…" Okay, it was a secret that only I could share with her. Admitting it to her right then was nearly equivalent to admitting it to myself. The truth is, I thought of all of the boys every day and wondered when they would come back.

"You're doing really great with the Leo, sis," Ania told me. I looked up from the fire and saw her red-orange eyes smiling at me. "I mean it. I think you'll be able to take it to space in no time."

I just smiled back, feeling bashful.

"You and Heero have spent a lot of time together…" she kept going. "Anything… more to that…?"

I dropped my smile.

"N-no," I stammered. I needed a cool response but my mind was coming up blank. "We're just friends." _Oh man, that sounded bad._ "What I mean is, we work together and… we talk but not about other stuff… about work stuff."

She raised her eyebrows and I instantly knew she was doing that x-ray vision thing.

"I… like the way he smells…" I admitted and then wanted to pour the hot chocolate on my face. "That's weird, I know. He's… someone I respect."

Ania smiled and didn't press it. _Thank you God,_ I thought. _I promise I will never lie again… most likely. I'll try not to._

"What about you?" I asked. "A rising mechanic, a world-renowned hacker, and fantastic chef… is there anything you can't do?"

She grinned and shook her head.

"Actually, I… think I've got it bad," she said.

"Got it bad? Got what bad? …Oh shit, you don't have the flu, do you? Because I can't get sick. I've got—"

"No, I mean… Duo and I have spent a lot of time together and…" She took a deep breath to collect herself and organize her thoughts. I wish I remembered to do that every time I started rambling. "He's the last thing I think about when I go to sleep. I feel very happy when we spend time together. I'm… jealous that you and him have movie nights where you oink out on triple chocolate chunk while he and I only work together. I know we got off on the wrong foot and, frankly, I hated the bastard before, but it's different now."

Wow, there was a lot said in that and I couldn't help but get caught up on the "jealous" line.

"Just so you know… me and him? Nothing going on there…"

"I know," she said. "I just want to be able to have a relationship outside of bolts, pliers, wires, and wrenches."

"I think you should give it a shot," I said and took a sip of my drink. She shrugged one shoulder.

"We'll see when he gets back," she said. I accepted that. "I miss him," she mumbled, and I was pretty sure she wasn't saying it for my sake. It sounded like a little bit of closure mixed a little bit of confession—for herself.

"Yeah…" was all I managed. _I miss him, too,_ I thought. In my head, I saw Heero's stoic face and couldn't make it go away.

I kicked leaves in her direction just to stir things up. That ended in a leaf-kicking battle, laughter, and nearly catching ourselves on fire. What a night.

When we went back inside, I pulled the laundry out of the dryer and folded clothes. When no one was looking, I inhaled the shirt in my hands. _Nope,_ I thought. _It's not the laundry._

/

Fall was a very nostalgic time for me. I was never really sure what I felt was missing in my life, what I was remembering, or what I longed for, but something about the smell and feel of fall made me feel soft from the inside out and kept me inside of my head. It was kind of lonely and kind of peaceful all at the same time.

I glanced down at my diver's watch. 4:09 PM. I inhaled the scent of fall again and kicked my legs in the air. Instead of piloting the Leo like I was supposed to be doing, I was lounging on the open hatch, high into the air, watching the treetops rustle in red and yellow as chilling breezes rushed by. The wind tugged on my hair under my cadet cap, on the colorful scarf around my neck, and then moved on.

I never wanted to go inside. It's unexplainable, but I was waiting for something—I guess for _them_. Ania distracted herself by work. Sometimes, she distracted herself with cooking; that's when she was at her worst. Every surface was, quite literally, el occupado by food. I remember going to bed one night and finding three-layer chocolate cake, a dozen coconut cupcakes, and a plate of pork chops on my cot.

When the sun started to sink an hour later, I closed up the Leo and took my time heading back to the house. Halfway down the trail, I heard a noise so familiar to me, my heart immediately began racing. I sped back to the clearing.

"Please," I found myself saying. I ran straight into Duo. We collided with a loud thunk and fell onto the ground in a twisted heap. "Aak!"

"Who's on fire?" he blurted, sitting up and adjusting his hat on his head. I got to my feet, rubbed the pain out of my rear, and picked leaves off my jacket.

"Sorry," I mumbled. "I heard your landing and,"—I couldn't tell him I was excited to see him or any of the other pilots that might be returning, so I kept rolling with a lie—"I was afraid someone was stealing the Leo…"

He hoisted his pack over his shoulder, eyed the Leo, and probably was wondering how someone would manage that.

"Welcome back," I said. He grinned.

"Good to be back, Partner." He then nodded toward the field. I followed the direction he was motioning to and saw Heero climbing out of the Wing Zero. I was too busy smiling to notice Duo walk off.

"Welcome back!" I said when Heero came close enough. He met my eyes and didn't look pleased. He said nothing, only kept going down the trail.

I've never been run through by a sword, but I'm pretty sure that's what it felt like.

When Duo opened the front door, Ania was at the couch tinkering, a tiny screwdriver between her teeth.

"I didn't expect you back so early," she said, believing it to be her sister who'd walked in. "Are you hungry? I can get dinner started."

"I'm starved, actually," he replied. Ania jumped up and spun around, mecha still in her hands. "Hey, that's looking good—"

She tossed it onto the table, spit out the screwdriver, and scrambled off the couch. Duo found himself in a hug before he'd even realized she'd tossed the gizmo. He smiled under the bill of his hat and wrapped his free arm around her back. His fingers captured her braid.

"Welcome home," she said. He leaned his head against the top of hers. Duo'd never been missed in his entire life; no one had ever welcomed him home and, since his adoptive parents had died, he'd never had a home. The warm welcome was overwhelmingly nice.

"It's good to be home," he said. When Ania released the hug, Duo smirked. "So you missed me, huh?"

"I missed all of you," she replied. "It's not the same house when it isn't full of crazy Gundam pilots, even the loud ones…" She ambled into the kitchen to start dinner, hiding her embarrassment in denial. Duo watched her go, appreciating the way her hips swayed when she walked, and slowly lowered his bag off his shoulder. "Are you leaving again…?" Ania's voice called from the kitchen.

"No," he answered. "Not for a while."

That satisfied her and she carried on with preparations. Duo went up to his room to unpack and Heero came in. Ania peaked around the corner.

"Where's Chona?" she asked. Heero glanced back, saw I wasn't with him, and kept going. She blinked, confused. Duo frowned from the catwalk. _What did you do, Heero?_ he thought.

/

I stood outside in the spot he'd left me in until my body had gone numb with the cold. I got too caught up in my emotions, I realized. I had no idea what my feelings for him were, but if I wanted to maintain a positive relationship, I had to let them go.

Heero's rejection and the numbing temperature in my bones filled my brain with frigid clarity.

"Shit…" I muttered. My heart felt like someone was squeezing it tightly and my brain felt stupid for acting like this arrangement was ever something more than business—than war.

I heard Ania calling me for dinner and shook my head until I felt like I'd shaken all the tension from my face. I massaged the muscles under my cheeks and in my forehead as I walked back, making sure there wasn't a frown around my eyes or in my brow that I'd somehow missed.

I waved when I saw her on the path, arms wrapped tightly around herself.

"What are you doing out here without a jacket?" I wanted to know.

"Well I got worried when you didn't come back," she said. I forced a laugh.

"Worried? What for? I was just out with the Leo," I lied. It's not that I wanted to keep it a secret from her; it's that I wanted to keep it a secret from me. If I told her, she'd feel bad and would try to comfort me; I couldn't have that. I needed to make myself stronger by forgetting it ever happened and forgetting it mattered to me.

"I guess," she said and we walked back to the house together.

/

The bath was hot and almost steamy when Duo and Heero slipped into it and relaxed against the edges. Any more tense and their muscles would be brick-breaking material. They closed their eyes, tilted their heads back, and slowly melted into jelly.

After they soaked for a good fifteen minutes, Duo opened one eye and peaked at Heero. Solemn. _Man_, Duo thought. _You don't look like you're enjoying yourself at all…_

"I think you should tell her," Duo said. Heero's brow instinctively twitched.

"Why?"

"Don't you think she has a right to know?" he asked. Heero didn't respond. "You know, it's okay to let her know you're just worried… If you don't, she might get the wrong impression."

Heero opened his eyes. He didn't want Duo to know he was suddenly more interested in the topic, but he had to know what his friend was talking about.

"What do you mean by that?" Heero asked. Duo sighed and adjusted his position.

"Don't think I haven't seen those killer looks you give when you're worried or stressed. You stay focused—sometimes too focused. Those of us around you aren't sure what you're really thinking." Duo glanced at Heero and could tell he wasn't getting anywhere. "Look, all I'm saying is don't let the war follow you home."

"The war is everywhere, Duo," Heero said. "We can't pretend it doesn't exist because we aren't in any battles."

"Exactly. So stop fighting battles. There's no enemy here."

Heero was officially silenced. He stared at the ceiling, piecing together what Duo had said until it made sense in his head.

Thirty minutes later, they were out of the bath and feeling more relaxed. Ania was snuggled in a blanket on the couch, watching a movie, and I was no where to be found. Duo plopped onto the couch next to her.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked.

"I donno…" she mused. "It's pretty corny."

"Pfft, you should see some of the ones your sister and I've watched. I think I've heard of this one, at least," he said. She was beaming inside, but on the outside, she just shrugged and said,

"Suit yourself." But she couldn't hide her smile.

Heero went out to the field where he stood under the tree canopy and watched me maneuver the Leo over and over again until I got it perfect. Of course, I never knew he was there.

/

The next day, I was in the kitchen making a grocery list for Ania's Harvest dinner when Duo peaked in.

"Have you seen my pants?" he asked. I looked down.

"Have you checked your legs? You're wearing them."

"Not these," he droned. "The ones I was wearing yesterday. I think I left my sprocket lug in them."

_Your what?_ I thought, but didn't ask. I was afraid if I did, he'd actually tell me.

"Sorry," I said and he moved on. I finished the list and double-checked it. There was a giant dividing line between her half and my half—it was called handwriting. Mine was pretty legible where hers looked like a pencil had attacked the paper. It was good to know she wasn't perfect at everything.

I skipped out of the kitchen and tucked the list between my lips as I threw a scarf on and zipped up a hoodie. Heero walked in from outside, hands buried in his jacket pockets. I'd hoped to miss him. _Stay calm,_ I thought. _Nothing's different._ Liar.

"Where are you going?" he asked, taking the note out of my mouth.

"Grocery shopping," I answered. He studied the list hard, probably trying to figure out what the first eighteen items were. "I'll be back in a few hours… unless you wanna come with?"

He looked up from the list and nodded. Phew. Now was a good time to reassert our professional relationship. Shopping was the least intimate thing we could ever to together, right? We were just closing the door when Duo flew out of his room and grabbed the rail to stop himself from propelling over the banister and into the living room.

"Heero!" he called. "Have you seen my pants from yesterday?"

"Didn't you leave them in the bathroom?" he asked.

"Right!" Duo exclaimed. Heero shut the door before I had a chance to stop him. _Oh well,_ I thought. _He'll figure it out._

Heero and I piled into the army jeep and drove down the path until we hit a road heading straight for town.

/

Duo threw open the shower room door and barged in to find his pants. Ania shrieked and Duo looked up. Ania was doing her best to hide behind the small shower wall.

"What are you doing in here?" she screamed. Duo's face turned five shades of red and he spun around.

"I just came in for my pants," he blurted.

"You're wearing them! Now get out!"

"Sorry!" Duo exclaimed and slammed the door behind him. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "What the hell was that?"

He went downstairs and wished he had a friend—someone, anyone—to help him brave the humiliation, or distract from it. He started tinkering but couldn't concentrate so he just pretended to do be doing something productive.

When Ania came out of the shower room, she was carrying his clothes from the day before. She was wearing jeans and a sweater and her hair was wet and tangled all the way down to her butt; Duo thought she looked really cute, which only made him more embarrassed.

"N-next time, knock!" she said.

"Next time?" he repeated, praying there wasn't a next time. "N-next time, lock the door!"

Ania's cheeks were practically glowing bright red and Duo felt a little nervous in his stomach. She tossed the pants over the railing and he caught them. She went straight into her room and shut the door. Duo pulled the socket lug out of his pants pocket and dropped onto the couch. He was feeling flustered and nervous and excited in all of the wrong places; well, technically, they were the right places—but that was beside the point. Since when had she had this effect on him?

Duo draped his pants over his crotch to hide his confusion and tilted his head back on the chair.

"Man," he thought out loud. "This is getting out of hand."

/

When Heero and I returned from grocery shopping, I was feeling good about our relationship. Okay, so while we were at the store, I felt pretty depressed; there were giggly couples everywhere picking out fresh fruits and vegetables together, and sometimes they googly-eyed each other and talked about making a cake. Not that I ever thought Heero and I were a couple or that I ever wanted to pick out tomatoes and make a cake with him. Maybe if it was cookies n'cream.

However, Heero and I blazed through the list like two professionals, except when we hit number twelve. Neither of us could figure out what she'd written. I lost it, laughing, and guessed everything she might've meant; I may have also made a little fun of her handwriting. When I looked up, Heero cracked a small smile—the first smile ever. I reminded the squirming creatures in my belly that it was no big deal. Then we finished shopping, loaded the bags with perfect efficiency, and got home without any conversation. It was pure symbiosis. This meant we were back on track.

I was unloading the grocery bags by myself when Duo walked in looking depressed and helped me put things away.

"What's the matter with you?" I asked.

"We're friends," he said. "You have fun with me. We've got our B-Cream night and all that." He handed me cans of veggies and I put them in the cabinet.

"Yeah…" I gave a drawn-out agreement, not really sure where he was going with that. He had a faraway look on his face, like he was really deep inside his brain. Oh boy, that was always dangerous when anyone had that look on; it meant they were saying only half of what they were thinking and I'd probably both start and end the conversation in confusion.

"Do you think I'm attractive?" he asked. Oh boy!

I froze and stared at him with probably a horrified look on my face that I couldn't control.

"Wh-what?" I stammered. He stepped closer, cans in his hands, and was still looking up at the invisible universe of puzzlement. I stepped back.

"I'm a pretty sexy guy," he went on. "I have a lot to offer a woman… if you know what I mean."

"Oh boy," I said aloud. _Omigosh,_ I thought. _What's happening?_

"I need to ask you something..." He kept coming closer, trying to pass the cans off, but I kept stepping away. This was entirely uncomfortable and awkward and confusing; first the pants thing this morning and then this? What was up with those cans? "You're the only one who can help me…"

I ran out of places to back up to and hit the wall. The cans entered my hands.

I can't explain why I flipped, but I shoved the cans into his hands and ran out without saying anything. I didn't stop until I bolted my bedroom door closed and hid under my covers. Those cans were dirty cans… Dirty, dirty metaphorical cans.

Duo snapped out of his reverie when I fled. He looked down at the cans and then at the door.

"Where'd you go?" he called. "Aren't you gonna finish unloading the groceries?"

When there was no reply, he assumed I'd gotten suddenly sick and finished the work for me. That was good, because later when I understood the situation, I would've felt really dumb having to explain my behavior. I felt bad for Duo, however; he'd had two women run out on him in one day. Talk about a ball-buster.

/

I finally came out of my room when I heard the front door open and several feet in the living room. When I looked over the railing, I had a big smile. Quatre and Trowa looked a little ragged but healthy.

"You're back!" I exclaimed, running down the stairs. Ania came out of her room and, upon realizing the situation, followed me.

"Welcome home!" she said. Duo poked his head out of the bathroom, flushed, and then came out to join the party. Ania and I gave Quatre and Trowa a hug as Heero sauntered into the room.

"It's good to be back," Quatre said, looking tired.

"Wufei contacted us just before crossing into Antilles," Trowa said. "He said to expect him tomorrow."

Ania beamed.

"This is perfect! Everyone will be together for Harvest Day. We'll all be able to eat together."

Quatre's exhausted face brightened up some. In spite of all of the hardships in the world, it was important to maintain a positive attitude; that is the lesson that Quatre Raberba Winner had taught us. Ania's declaration of a celebratory dinner definitely appealed to his positive side.

"I think that's a great idea," he said. "I'll help you!"

The smile stayed on her face. I could tell she was really into that idea. After all, she'd never had help cooking the Harvest dinner before; like hell I was going to help. More like, she'd never have let me. It had to be perfect and I wasn't all that great of a cook; sometimes, I burned water.

Quatre and Trowa quickly collapsed for the night, Ania and I avoided Duo by hiding out in our rooms, Heero worked on the computers, and Duo was alone on the couch tinkering until bedtime.


	6. Checkmate

The next day, Wufei arrived with a lot of happiness and he was surprised to have been so missed. Everything continued as normal for the next two days. I resolved my discomfort around Duo by repeating "don't ask, don't tell" in my head whenever we were together. Ania and Duo went back to tinkering. Trowa picked up a book and never put it down. Quatre emanated kindness. Wufei worked out and meditated. And Heero kept me busy in the Leo.

A couple days later, Ania and Quatre woke up early and began preparing the Harvest dinner for the next day. Because of the holiday, we all relaxed around the house.

"Chona, where are the artichoke hearts? I don't see any!" Ania called. I poked my head in the kitchen.

"Artichoke hearts?" I balked. "Where did you write articho—ooooooh. So that's what you meant."

She peeked at me from the pantry.

"What do you mean, so that's what I meant?"

"Number 12. We thought you wrote a Mexican chokehold, which didn't make any sense at all."

She just stared at me.

"Artichoke hearts, huh? So that's what you meant?" I shrugged. "Yeah… Yeah… We need to work on that." And I escaped.

Duo helped me build a bonfire outside and everyone circulated between outside and in. Trowa even managed to put down his book and conversate every once in awhile.

When Ania opened the freezer, she saw a country ham and a turkey each taking up a shelf. She double-checked the list.

"Turkey… _and_ ham?" she asked out loud. Quatre came over to see what the hold up was about.

"What's wrong?"

"Can you have both turkey and ham at Harvest?" she wanted to know. Quatre looked clueless. "Which is it? Do you mind asking for me?"

"Sure," he said and went outside where we'd all gathered by the fire. "Hey, everyone. Turkey or ham?"

We all turned to face him and replied in unison.

"Both."

Defenseless, Quatre accepted the data and retreated inside to deliver the poll results. Trowa followed him inside a few minutes later.

"Man, the trees are pretty this time of year," I remarked, hands buried in my hoodie pockets. We were all bundled up; fall only grew colder and colder. "Anyone wanna go for a walk?"

"Don't look at me," Wufei said. "Wasting time on wistful notions isn't something I'm interested in."

Heero just observed the conversation but didn't say anything.

"I'll go," Duo declared. I grinned.

"Thank God someone has an eye for nature," I muttered as we headed off for the path. I waved to Heero and Wufei with my hand still in my hoodie pocket and then Duo and I hit the trail. I gave him a side kick in his ass and ran for it when he came after me.

Out of all the Gundam pilots, Duo had really become a good friend. Next to my sister, he was probably the best friend I'd ever had.

We walked along in peace after he'd had his revenge and talked about random things like the war, movies, what made the leaves go from green to red and yellow and orange.

"It's funny," he said, tapping at the ground with a stick he'd picked up along the trail.

"What is?"

"How you and your sister have just come to belong with us."

I nodded.

"No shit…" I mumbled. "We didn't see that coming, not until it hit us in the face."

"Neither did we," he said. "I think it would be strange if we suddenly weren't together anymore."

I gave him a long and thoughtful look.

"What are you thinking, Duo Maxwell?" I asked. He grinned.

"I saw your sister naked in the shower."

I went bright red in her stead. First reaction: shock. Second reaction: embarrassment. Third reaction: uncontrollable laughter.

"Yeah," he mumbled, chuckling. I elbowed him.

"She didn't tell me!" I blurted. "What happened?"

"I guess exactly what'd you expect. I went in, we screamed at each other, and I ran out."

"I mean after. What happened after?"

"She threw my pants at me and ran for it."

We both had a good laugh over it and I gathered colorful leaves. Duo told me the story about when he first met Heero and how Heero had ripped up an invitation to Relena Peacecraft's birthday party. I felt a lot better about his rejection and was happy to know that our relationship was good.

When we rejoined the group, Wufei was gone and Duo went inside to get warm.

"Would you like something hot to drink?" I asked Heero. He nodded and so I went inside, poured two cups of coffee, and went back out. "Here ya go," I said, passing him a cup.

We stood in silence, sipped our drinks, and I fingered the leaves in my pocket. I thought about mentioning the ripping-invitation incident, but decided he probably would refuse to talk about it. I'm not sure how long we were out there staring into the flames but I had drifted off into a fantasy of fighting in space, being propelled from my mobile suit, picked up by the battleship I'd seen docked at Aria, and then given my own Gundam. Heero interrupted my thoughts.

"I like it here," he said. I looked up at him across the blaze, surprised.

"Hn?"

"Being here… being with you makes me feel far away from all the battles," he told me. I felt my stomach go fluttery and my heart began beating quickly. What did that mean? Weren't we being professionally symbiotic? So why did he have to go and say something like that and give me hope?

_Hope?_ I thought. _Hope for what, exactly?_

I ran away from his gaze and focused on the fire. His eyes were intense. They tugged at every emotion I possessed. If I made a mistake, his eyes delivered a reprimanding like no other with a single glance. When I succeeded, a simple flick of the eyes in my direction put me on cloud nine.

Those eyes haunted me.

And now his words would as well.

/

Ania had already sent Quatre off to bed and was cleaning the last of the dishes when Trowa peaked in.

"Need any help?" he asked. She shook her head but he came in anyway and started drying pots and pans.

"Thanks," she said and they worked quietly for awhile.

"You know," Trowa began as they finished up. "When Quatre and I were returning to Antilles, we expected to find an empty house."

Ania leaned against the counter and waited, not sure what to say.

"We were both hoping, however, that it would still be full." He stopped drying to give her his full attention. "In a way, you and your sister have brought us Gundam pilots together. Before, our ties to one another were circumstantial, at best. Now, we're more like a family."

Ania was surprised and her face revealed it. Trowa smiled.

"Quatre believes that stronger bonds with each other will make us a stronger force against injustice, a stronger force for peace. I think he's right. So, I just wanted to say, thank you," he concluded. Ania managed a small smile.

"You're welcome," she replied quietly. Really, she wanted to thank him, too. The Gundam pilots had given her and her sister something to fight for, a reason to keep going against the Alliance, and a happiness they'd never before experienced.

/

The excitement of the Harvest dinner buzzed around the house as Quatre and Ania finished cooking. Because the dining room table only had three chairs, we'd all taken to eating in the living room. As the chefs prepared plates of food, the rest of us set the coffee table with napkins and silverware. I littered the table with the prettiest leaves I could find outside, uncooked squash, tiny pumpkins, and two candles for festive decoration. Duo poured glasses of wine. Wufei kept asking why it was called Harvest Dinner if we ate it at lunch time, but everyone agreed to leave him in suspense. Then it was time to eat. Ania, Quatre, and I sat on one couch with Trowa and Wufei across from us. Heero sat in the chair on Ania's left and Duo in the chair on my right.

Conversation hummed over the food as we passed dishes around. Quatre said a few words about how important this moment meant and then we all dug in. The laughter, the faces, the topics we discussed—it remains one of the best times of my entire life. The moment when Duo stole cranberry off my plate while Trowa stole a slice of ham off of his, Quatre's flushed face from too much wine, Ania spilling sweet potato casserole on Heero's pants, Wufei's alarm when he found out he was supposed to _eat_ the deviled eggs—they are all photographs in my memory. I will never forget them.

/

Dirty dishes were piled in the sink and scattered across the counters, forgotten for now. In the living room, we all stood around an intense chess match between Ania and Trowa. So far, Trowa had defeated Wufei and Quatre, and this latest match was looking like it could go either way. I couldn't begin to explain the moves that went on; I had a problem keeping up with things the moment Trowa moved his first pawn.

I did, however, notice the victorious smirk on his face when he slipped his knight into a check against Ania's king. After a thought, she slid her bishop across the board, foiled his check, and put his queen in imminent danger. Trowa squinted at the board. Their back-and-forth went on for a long time and my eyes were beginning to cross.

"Okay, you guys keep going like this, and your gonna squish my brain under all this tension," I said, heading for the door.

"You're not even playing," Ania protested. Quatre was hiding a snicker at my expense.

"I need some air. I'll be back in a minute," I said. Duo came after me.

"Same here," he said. "Save me match. I wanna play the victor!"

I didn't notice Heero's hard expression or Ania's wondering eyes when Duo and I left. That was probably for the best; it would've just worried me.

Duo and I kicked around outside. We were like nature buddies.

"Treehuggers, hoooo!" Duo exclaimed as we propelled ourselves into a pile of leaves. We flailed around, did it again, and then walked on.

"Hey, Duo," I began. "You understand Heero, right?"

He laughed.

"Not even a little bit," he replied. I guess I looked disappointed because he added, "But I've had a lot of experience guessing him. What's up?"

"When you and he got back from your mission a few weeks ago, I said, well—I welcomed him back and he didn't say anything. He just glared at me, sort of, and walked on."

Duo frowned inside his mind, realizing exactly what had gone on that night. I kept going.

"You know, I figured it was because he wanted to keep our relationship professional, and so I focused really hard on keeping it just that. But last night, he said, 'I like being here with you because it makes me feel far away from the battles.' I just don't get it." I said and Duo smiled. When I looked up at him, he quickly wiped the grin off. "I guess I wondered what you thought."

"When we were gone, Heero became pretty worried about you. When he saw you that day, it probably reminded him how afraid he was and that's what you saw in his expression. Instead of embracing what he cares about, he distances himself from it to protect it." Duo lightly bumped me as we walked, so I bumped him back. We bumped each other down the path as he continued his explanation. "Heero acts on his emotions but it's not always easy for people like us to understand. Be patient with him and, some day, I think he'll realize he can pull more strength from those he cares for by keeping them close instead of at a distance."

I had a hard time telling the squirming things in my stomach that this was no big deal; they knew I was telling a big, fat lie. It was a very big deal.

"Thanks," I said, trying not to smile too foolishly. We doubled around and headed back for the house.

"So I was thinking now that everything has calmed down, I might ask your sister to dinner," Duo said. I felt immense relief from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

"Oh, so that's what that was about," I muttered.

"What was what was about?"

"The other day, in the kitchen, with the cans, and the faraway look, and—never mind. I think that's a good idea," I said. He grinned.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," I confirmed.

"Do you think she'll say no?" he asked. I shrugged.

"It's worth the risk, isn't it?"

He nodded.

"Definitely. I wasn't sure if… well, I wanted someone's opinion." He shrugged. "You were really the only one I could ask. You know us the best and, really, I want to make sure she'd be happy. I wouldn't want to cross that line if it wouldn't make her happy."

"I think… you should cross that line," I said. "I think if anyone is going to make her happy, it's you."

We got closer to the house and he nudged my shoulder.

"You'll marry me if your sister breaks my heart, right?" he asked. I quirked an eyebrow at him. "What? I'm gonna need someone to watch the b-list with."

"I guess that means I don't have to give you the 'break her heart and I'll kill you' speech," I muttered. The truth is, if I got my heart broken, too, I'd probably agree. Who better to share your misery with than a friend? I was pretty grateful for Duo. He'd really turned out to be a good friend. Honestly, I was happy he was going to ask Ania out; I knew it was what she wanted and I felt really good about having such a good guy take care of her.

/

When we got back, the match was ending.

"Checkmate," Ania said.

"Woo!" I hollered, taking off my coat and throwing it over a chair. Trowa was staring blankly at the board, lost in a trance of defeat.

"How was the walk?" Ania asked.

"Gorgeous," I replied.

"I don't know how you guys stay inside all the time," Duo remarked. "It's real beautiful out there."

Quatre smirked. "That's so romantic," he joked. I faux-swooned at Duo.

"Oh, I'm so in love," I wailed.

"Sorry, honey," he replied, "But you'd be a fool to fall in love with the God of Death."

I laughed and he clapped his hands together.

"Alright!" Duo exclaimed. "I think it's my turn to take a crack at this." He bumped Trowa to the other side of the couch.

"You sure?" Ania asked, skeptical. "Such a smart guy like Trowa just got the beat down. I'm going to wipe the floor with _you_." She winked at Trowa who continued to stare blankly ahead. He didn't move, didn't blink, and she wasn't sure he was breathing. "Trowa?" she asked and snapped her fingers in front of his face. No response.

"He'll live," Duo said and began setting up the board.

"What do you think your doing?" she asked. "I always play with the black pieces."

"So do I," he scoffed. She snatched up the ebony queen.

"I'm the current champion, so I get to choose which color I play with."

He snatched the queen back.

"And I'm the God of Death," he said. "I play with the black pieces." And he finished setting up. Ania squinted at him.

"Fine. Let's, uh, make a little bet, shall we?" she began. He perked in interest. "Winner takes all—the right to play with the black pieces and the title of God of Death. The loser forfeits _and_ gets to do the dishes."

We all glanced at the mountain of dishes needing cleaning in the kitchen and then back at the board. Duo looked skeptical.

"Unless you're… scared," she muttered. It was his turn to squint.

"Alright, you're on," he agreed, and the death match began.

I won't even lie and say it was a close call. Truth is, after the first few moves, Duo was on a slippery slope to defeat. Ania was right; she metaphorically wrenched him up by his hair, gave him a swirly, and mopped the floor with him.

"Checkmate," she declared twenty minutes later. She snatched up the ebony king and nodded toward the kitchen. "Get to hoppin', Bus Boy."

I was pretty sure Duo's pride would get in the way and he'd make a fuss. However, he just grinned, threw up his hands in surrender, and stood up.

"Anything you say, Goddess," he muttered. Ania was taken aback. _No way,_ she thought. After a second, Ania cleared her throat and looked up at me.

"Sis?" she asked. I shook my head and went to help Duo with the dishes.

"Not on your life," I replied. "I've no intention of going down in history as the fastest defeated chess opponent ever." When I was next to Duo, I grinned. "Nice going," I whispered. He glanced back at her and began scrubbing.

Heero slid in front of the chess board, much to Ania's surprise. After about fifteen minutes, she was no longer reining champion and Heero had wandered off somewhere. Trowa felt slightly revenged. Ania hobbled into the kitchen, dazed, and sat on top of the counter while we cleaned.

"That's the scariest opponent I've ever had," she mumbled. "His eyes… it was like he was really fighting a war! What kind of person takes these things so seriously?"

I waited a few minutes and then snuck out to give them some alone time. When Ania realized I'd gone, she chewed the inside of her lip and then motioned to the sink.

"Want some help?" she asked Duo. He shook his head.

"You won, fair and square."

"Not really…" she admitted. "You never really had much of a chance."

Duo stopped washing and came closer. He put his hands on either side of her legs, trapping her on the counter.

"I accepted the bet," he reminded her. "It was pretty fair. But if you want to make it up to me, go to dinner with me tomorrow night."

Ania felt her face hot with excitement. She waited for the part where he said it was a joke, but his grinning eyes remained serious. She regained her composure and smirked.

"Sure," she replied, "if you put on a tie for me."

"Is that it?" he asked, still smiling. "Just a tie? No pants, no shirt, no—"

"Pants would be good," she exclaimed. All of the excited happiness bubbling up inside her stomach came out as laughter.

"Are you sure?" He raised his brows. "Cause I think just a tie might make for a more interesting evening."

Ania blushed and nodded.

"Yeah, I think you should wear clothes," she said. He slowly stood upright and went back to washing dishes.

"Alright," he complied. Ania pushed off of the counter and semi-walked, semi-skipped up to her bedroom, probably to plan out what she was going to wear.

When Duo finished the dishes, he popped his head in my room where I was pretending to read; I was really waiting to hear the results of the conversation. I looked at him expectantly, brows nearly touching my hairline in anticipation. He gave a thumbs up and walked away. I did the "yes" elbow pump.

/

Heero squinted at the monitor and nodded to the person on the other side of the comm. call.

"You're sure," he said and the woman nodded.

"Positive," she replied.

"Thanks, Noin," he said and closed the call. He checked the time and leaned back in his chair. 1:11 AM. "It's time," he muttered to himself.


	7. Date

When I woke up, the house was quiet. Ania had just gotten up herself and was curled up on the couch in duckie-print pajamas and a flannel robe, watching Trowa's back as he made eggs. Duo was reading a magazine and Quatre was reading a book. Heero and Wufei looked to be out. I double-checked the computer room—empty.

I padded down to the living room and yawned. I had pajama pants on and a long-sleeve shirt, but I was still pretty cold so I snuggled up under the tail of my sister's robe.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Trowa's secret recipe," she replied.

"For eggs?"

"That's what he says."

I eyed Trowa's back. "Huh…" I glanced at Duo. "What's the magazine?"

"The latest in mechanical endeavors," he replied, flipping the page; I made a face. "I'll let you read it when I'm done, if you like."

"No thanks," I mumbled.

Just then, Heero walked in. He brushed my arm and motioned for me to follow him onto the balcony. I grumbled out of the warmth of Ania's robe, snatched a jacket from the kitchen chair I'd officially turned into a coat rack, stuffed my feet into Ania's ankle boots, and clopped outside. I glanced back at Duo, who was eyeing us from over the top of his magazine.

"Wow, its cold out," I said when I stepped on the balcony. The wind, when it blew, was frigid. I tightened the jacket around me.

"Come here," Heero said so I did. His face was very serious.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"When Duo and I were out on our mission, we found out that OZ is looking for two rogue contractors possibly affiliated with the resistance. They had one partial ID from the break-in—yours."

I felt the muscles in my face drop tension. _Shit!_

"What about Ania?" I asked, gripping the railing. "Do they have anything on her? Is she still safe?" I felt the panic welling up in my chest but Heero put a calming hand on my shoulder.

"She's fine, for now."

I exhaled a little bit of anxiety and swallowed.

"Okay…" I whispered. "Okay."

"OZ is assembling a profile on you now. Anyone who has ever come in contact with you is now a liability. We can't assume your identity will remain safe for long. And if they learn who you are, it won't be long before they figure out you have a sister… and that your sister is who you've been working with."

I nodded.

"What should we do?"

"Infect their information network—do anything we can to delete and corrupt their files." He faced me fully and stared down with an intensity that only Heero Yuy could possess. "I have to get you out of here."

"When?"

"Tonight."

I was silent as I absorbed his words and what they meant. He only spoke of whisking me away, not my sister. She and I had never been apart before.

"I take it… Ania won't be coming?" I asked. He nodded. "I thought so… Where will you take me?"

"The safest place for you now will be the Aria Station. I'll come back for you when I know your profile has been deleted."

"You're not dropping me at Aria and running off on your own. I'm coming with you."

"No you're not," he said solemnly. "There'd be no point in hiding you if we risk your identity trying to erase it."

"You're _not_ leaving me alone up there," I said. More than any OZ profile, being left alone on a space station with no idea as to when I'd be allowed to leave was frightening. "I want to fight with you."

He reached out and gripped my shoulders. His face came closer.

"Believe in me," he said. My voice caught in my throat; there was no way I could argue with him when he said things like that.

"I…" I muttered, but I never went anywhere with it.

"I _will_ make sure you're safe," he said. "And when I do, I _will_ come back for you."

All I could manage was a nod. Probably later, I'd take it back and argue my right to come along. But right then, with him so close, I was locked up.

"Tell no one, not even your sister."

I thought about asking why, but already knew the answer; she would make a huge fuss and there'd be no leaving without her. As I mentioned, we'd never been apart. Just like Heero wanted to keep me safe, I wanted to keep her safe. Staying silent would be the best way to do that.

I nodded again. The wind blew and I was reminded how cold it was outside. The shock of all that he'd said had distracted me from lesser woes. We stared into each other's eyes and I tried to borrow his strength.

The uncertain future was scary.

/

Heero and I had a plan: as soon as Ania and Duo left for their date, we would slip out. It was hard keeping it a secret from her. She was so excited for her big evening and I was trying to be excited with her, but all I could think about was being separated from her and stuck on a space station. I kept catching myself frowning.

"What do you think?" she asked, spinning once.

She was dressed in a midnight blue beauty that hugged her curves and showed off her best features with spaghetti straps, a v-neck, and a high slit. Somehow, she made it look classy with her pinned-up curls draping over one shoulder and her elegant, open-toed heels.

I was perched on the edge of her bed, one foot tucked under my butt, in shorts and a ratty t-shirt with one side off the shoulder. I had the curling iron still in my hand.

"Perfect," I said. "You already know that."

She smiled and checked her handheld mirror again, making sure the eyeliner was in the right places and the lipstick in none of the wrong.

"It's hard to tell when your mirror is as big as your face," she mumbled. I hopped up, curled one more strand, and then unplugged.

"I can't believe you're going out like that in this weather. I'd freeze my you-know-what off."

"I have a high tolerance for cold," she said, and I didn't need to be reminded. That woman was a friggin' furnace underneath. "Plus, I'll have a coat."

"Have fun," I said. "You're pretty much hook, line, and sinker in this getup."

She gave me a hug and I resisted the urge to embrace her. I walked her to the cats and stopped at my room as she made her way down the staircase like a true champion; if it had been me, I'd have tripped and busted my face after the first step in those heels.

Duo was waiting at the door in stunned, dropped-jaw silence as she came down. He had her long coat on his arm but was too entranced to use it. Trowa and Quatre admired her from the couch; even Wufei peaked out of his room.

"You… are… beautiful," Duo said. She blushed under the make-up.

"You're not so bad yourself, Duo Maxwell," she replied, admiring his suit. "You clean up real well."

He held out her coat and she slipped into it.

"Duo Maxwell can be a very refined gentleman when he wants to be," he informed her. She took his offered arm but before they could leave, I shouted from the catwalk.

"Hey!" I exclaimed. "Don't stay out too late."

"Don't worry," Duo said. "I'll take good care of her."

"I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to her," I said and nodded to my sister. "You have him home by eleven, you hear?"

She stuck her tongue out at me and they left. I leaned back on the wall and blew the hair out of my eyes.

"Bye…" I whispered and ducked into my room.

/

Heero knocked only once, didn't wait for an answer, and came into my room. Good thing I wasn't expecting privacy. I was sitting on the bed, a satchel stuffed full of clothes, wondering if I was forgetting anything.

"You ready?" he asked. I shook my head.

"Not really," I admitted. "What am I supposed to do up there while I wait for you to come back?"

He didn't reply. Big surprise. I stood up and threw the satchel over my shoulder. We squared off, he guessed I was ready, and we left. I closed the door behind us but didn't lock it.

We walked the dark path to the mobile suits in silence. As I was starting up my flight sequence, Heero appeared in the doorway.

"Remember to—" he started, but I interrupted him.

"I remember everything you taught me," I assured him. I gave a small smile and focused on the keyboard. "Can't promise I won't panic when we break earth's atmosphere, but…"

Heero leaned into the cockpit and I felt the heat on his skin.

"You'll be fine," he said. "When you were with me in Wing Zero, your heart was beating hard and I could tell you were afraid. But when we crossed into space, your heartbeat calmed."

Well, I couldn't say what it was, but right then, my heartbeat was thudding against my chest. He reached behind me to flip the vector switch and, when he did, his face was very close to mine. I knew my cheeks must've flamed even brighter. He didn't say anything, however; he just mashed the button to close the hatch, jumped down, and headed for the Wing Zero.

I waited for Heero to confirm departure and then followed his Gundam upward into the sky. We climbed higher and higher, and I began sweating more and more. I didn't remember his story; I couldn't recall how I felt when I entered space. I was enthralled, sure; I'd never seen it before. But that was different. Heero had been piloting and I was under his protection. This time, I was entering space myself. This time, something was likely to go wrong because I was at the helm.

The closer to earth's atmosphere that we came, the more my stomach knotted and curled.

"Heero—" I started, but his stern reply shut me up.

"Look up at the sky," he said. "Watch it become something infinite."

I was biting so hard on my lip, I caused it to bleed. The deep blue became darker the higher we climbed and then the red haze of our atmospheric barrier began pushing on my mobile suit. I fought the pressure and pushed harder. It rumbled around me and my suit trembled in the vibrations as it threatened to crush me. Stay on earth, that's what it was telling me. Human beings aren't meant to be in space, it whispered.

But Heero Yuy had gone to space. I couldn't do anything else but follow him.

I held on and pushed through, and then the last layer of the earth was stripped away. The earth peeled back to reveal an infinite blackness littered with bright, white lights. It was as though I'd unwrapped the treasure of the universe; Merry Christmas, my daughter, the universe is yours to explore.

My heartbeat immediately returned to normal and my breathing calmed. _Space,_ I thought, but my mind was too blank to communicate how I felt. Heero's face appeared on a screen in front of me.

"See?" he asked. "It's as though you were born in space."

_Born in space?_ I wondered.

We rocketed off toward the Aria station with Heero in the lead and me by his side. On earth, I'd had to learn this suit; but, in space, I felt completely at home.

/

The door to the Gundam base in Antilles opened up into a dark room.

"I guess they've all gone to bed," Ania remarked as she stepped inside. Duo came in behind her and shut the door.

"Huhn," he mused. "That's unusual. It's not that late." He checked his watch. It was only eleven.

Ania cleared her throat and turned to face her date.

"I, uh, had a really great time," she confessed. Duo smirked and stepped closer.

"I did, too," he said. "Dinner was good?"

"You know it was, or did the first three times I said 'mm, this is amazing' miss your ears?"

He held up his hands in surrender.

"Just checking." He reached out and gently brushed a curl from her face, still grinning. "Are you ready for dessert?"

"You mean you?" She wanted to know, eyes playful. "I'm on a strict health food diet. I can't eat anything bad for me."

"And how would you know I'm not on the menu? Since when have you had a slice of Duo Maxwell?"

Ania didn't really have a response. _Okay, fuck cargo,_ she thought. She was ready to give this round to Duo. She tried to psychically convey to her heart to stop beating so hard and so loudly, but her heart definitely wasn't listening.

Duo reached out and took her jaw line between his thumb and index and gently guided her toward him. She couldn't close her eyes, even though he was coming so close. He was too gorgeous to not look at. Just when his lips came close enough, however, a flushing sound was heard down the hallway, followed by a stream of light that quickly clicked off. They took some inconspicuous steps away from each other and watched Trowa sleep-walk up the stairs and back to his room.

After their nerves calmed down, they both laughed a little. Awkward. Ania and Duo climbed the stairs, too.

"Well, thanks again," Ania said, glancing back at her date. "I had a nice time."

But when she turned to go, Duo yanked her by the arm and spun her around. Their lips connected in a hard kiss of soft lips; after a moment, it became a sweet, open-lip exchange in with what one might call "church tongue". And then it was over.

Duo grinned in a way that made Ania's heart do the final triple-step of the Remigold. It was obvious he was just as embarrassed as she was, but every muscle in his face tugged with utter control.

"Goodnight," he said. She nodded, speechless, and ducked inside her bedroom before any _permanent_ tomato-ing happened to her cheeks.

Ania quickly got out of the dress and make-up and into some pajamas. She peeked out of her bedroom to confirm Duo had already gone to bed. Check—the coast was clear. She ran to her sister's room and knocked softly. No answer. She knocked a bit louder, but nothing.

"Must've gone to sleep…" she mumbled, a bit disappointed she wouldn't be able to gossip 'til the morning. She thought about barging in and waking her up, but decided against it in the end.

/

While my flying had been graceful, my docking at the Aria station resembled a back-alley bar brawl. So much for space finesse.

When the doors locked behind us, Heero and I lowered our mobile suit doors and kicked out into the zero-gravity chamber. My first time in zero-grav, and I wasn't handling it like a champion. I want to lie and say it was something—anything else—but the truth is, I couldn't stop laughing.

Heero spun around and watched me as we slowly moved for the ground.

"What?" I wanted to know, barely restraining the giggles. Then, the tickle monster doubled his effort on my gut and I was only thankful I didn't spit everywhere when I started laughing again.

"Are you okay?" he asked. I could tell he really thought there was a problem. Alas. Why is laughter considered the medicine of the soul when everyone who catches you indulging just thinks you're crazy? Either someone ain't reading up on their daily quotes or it's one of those double-standard things; be that as it may, I still think I get the short end of the stick on this one. I'm constantly medicating my soul.

When we got to the door, Heero helped pull me to the ground. It whirred open and the smiling face of Sally Po greeted us with the sour-patch gruff of Lieutenant Braxxon behind her.

"Welcome back to Aria, you two," she said.

We all began walking down a hallway I'd never been down before. Last time I was here, I wasn't exactly a guest of honor…

"As you requested," Sally began, and I guessed she wasn't talking to me, "the operation has remained on a need-to-know level. The Orion Base blueprints were finally completely assembled this morning. A tracer program is en route from the _Peacemillion_."

I soaked in the info. Even though Heero intended to leave me behind, one never knew when these sort of things would come in handy.

Sally and Braxxon stopped to look at us.

"A place was prepared, but I still don't understand," Sally said. "You really intend to leave her behind?"

"Show the girl to her room," Heero said coolly. "I'm going in alone."

He brushed past us and headed up to the bridge. I frowned at his back. I guess I should've been thinking, _Alone? You bastard, I'm going with you! _But I was really thinking, _Girl? The girl? What do you mean, the girl? Is that all I am to you? The girl? You bastard!_

I caught Sally's gaze in my peripherals and was surprised at how she was sympathetically sizing me up.

"So it's you, huh?" she said, and I gathered it was a rhetorical question. "God forbid they get you."

I didn't really know what she meant by that, and felt more than under arrest when two guards appeared beside me and escorted me up to my room.

The bedroom they'd confined me to did not scream space station; it screamed United Earth's Sphere Alliance ambassador, complete with carpet, a king-sized bed with ten layers of sheets, blankets, and comforter plus a billion pillows, hand-carved wood furniture, and drapes over windows that had only one channel: stars. It was Ania's king-sized fluffy-fluff dream come true.

I tried the door and wasn't very surprised to find it locked. I hem-hawed around the room for a couple hours but the allure of the fluffy-fluff was too strong. I'm not sure how long I was asleep, but when I opened my eyes, the room was dark and Heero was sitting on the bed next to me.

"I'm leaving. Try not to worry, I'll be back as soon as I've completed my mission," he said. I sat up, still feeling groggy from sleep.

"Heero, I'm not okay with this. You can't just leave me here," I protested. "I can help you. I should be helping you. This is about me. This is my fault."

Heero put a hand on my shoulder to steady me. Okay, so I was a little wobbly… I was feeling _really_ groggy; guess I didn't realize how sleepy I was.

"This is not your fault. This is your life in danger. If you go into OZ territory, you're just volunteering to finish the profile for them. Stay here, and I'll finish this."

He began pushing me down, and I was stunned when I didn't have the strength to fight back. I grabbed his arm and pulled him with me, but my vision was fuzzy so I didn't see his face contort into surprise when he found himself only inches from my face. _Okay,_ I thought. _This is way too groggy for sleep._

"What did… you… do to… me?" I mumbled, but slipped into the unconscious. Heero slid from my grasp and brushed the hair from my forehead.

"It's for your own good," he said. "I can't guarantee your safety if you're following after me."

And then he got up and left.


	8. Orion

Ania had knocked three times on her sister's door and was beginning to worry. How long would it take before she'd answer? _Is she sick?_ she thought, but quickly dismissed it. _No way Chona's sick… Nothing keeps her macho-ADD self in bed, not even a death sentence…_

Ania twisted the valve. Not locked. She pushed open the door and the panic welling in her stomach shot straight through to her throat. She raced out of the house and out to the clearing, fingers crossed. She wasn't sure why she had such a bad feeling. _Chona's out there practicing with Heero. That's all. She's out there practicing. I'm worrying for nothing! I'm—_ When she hit the clearing, she realized the Leo and Wing Zero were gone. A tear slipped down her cheek and she sprinted back to the house.

"She's gone!" she exclaimed as she threw open the door. She raced through the living room and, with eyes blazing and hair tweaking a la scary, gorilla-monkey mode, she barged into the kitchen. "Where is she?" she shouted, voice burning with the boiled blood of a very concerned sister. Trowa, Duo, and Wufei looked helpless, her left-over turnovers halfway to their mouths; they were paused in guilty motion.

Quatre came out of the shower room, scrubbing a towel against his wet hair.

"What's going on?" he asked. Ania whirled to face him.

"Where is she?" she screamed again, this time more desperate. "Chona's gone with the Leo and so is the Wing Zero!"

This got them all to scrambling. They immediately checked Heero's room, but he was, of course, gone. Wufei and Trowa did the manly confirmation that the mobile suits were missing; sure, like she missed two ten-story mobile suits in a giant clearing. It could happen to anyone, right? Quatre checked the computers for any kind of message but there was nothing so he repeatedly dialed the Wing Zero. No answer. Duo turned both mine and Heero's rooms upside down looking for clues, but only came up with spandex and lace.

When Trowa and Wufei returned to the house, they found Ania, Duo, and Quatre gathered in the computer room. Duo was leaning against the door with a dark look on his face as they all waited anxiously as the computer beeped over and over again, calling the Wing Zero.

_Heero,_ Duo thought. _What have you done all by yourself?_ He decided to limit everyone's knowledge of his involvement in the situation. If Ania ever found out he knew about the OZ hit on the rogues who ransacked Ohm, she'd castrate him in creative ways that would probably found a whole new art movement for not telling her.

The computer beeped and beeped but no one ever picked up.

/

The doors from Dock 8 whirred open and Lieutenant Noin whisked past the welcoming detail sent down from the bridge. She marched straight up to command and through the door without announcement.

"Where is he?" she demanded. Sally looked puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"I just found out about the rogue operatives OZ is looking for. It's them; it's those girls they picked up. I know Heero came to deal with it and I'm here to help. So where is he?"

"He's already there, handling the situation."

Noin looked relieved for a second.

"Who's with him?"

"No one. He went in alone." Sally replied. Noin's relief was instantly vaporized. "He left Chona on the station and went in by himself."

Noin slammed her hand on the console.

"Damn it! How could he do something so stupid? Orion's a fortress."

"He refused."

Noin crossed to the station log and began flipping through the listings.

"Where is she?" Noin wanted to know.

/

They say outer space is cold, but the truth is… in a space station, you can't really tell. They only say it's cold because all you ever see is black; well, that and the fact that it _is_ cold, but that's only if you were actually floating out in it without a giant hull between you and oblivion. Inside, space is actually oddly warm.

I knew, because I'd been sitting at the window for an hour, battling back-and-forth in my mind about the scientific properties of space linked with the psychology of man in the black and just how badly Heero Yuy was gonna get it for drugging me.

The door was suddenly thrown open and I got to my feet to face a black-haired woman I'd never met before.

"Can you still fly?" she asked me, tossing a duffel bag of top secret infiltration goodies toward me. I snatched it out of the air.

"Absolutely," I replied.

"C'mon."

I didn't hesitate even a second; I followed her out of the door and down to the hangar where the black-haired woman's and my mobile suit were waiting.

"My name is Lieutenant Lucrezia Noin, former Alliance."

"Cinchona Spice, but everyone just calls me Chona. Former Serpent."

"I was the one who detected the investigation of the Ohm break-in. I forwarded the data to Heero but I see he's gone off to fight on his own again."

"Do you know where he's headed?" I asked as I stepped into the black jumpsuit and zipped up. "He mentioned Orion, but I'm not sure where that is."

"It's on a colony," she replied. "Colony 057. It's mostly like a military town, functioning due to the large base. The economy is steered because of OZs presence there."

"One of the few," I remarked. She nodded in agreement as I laced my feet into combat boots.

"Yes. We're only a few hours behind him. Knowing Heero, he observed before he attacked. Because he's alone, he'll have snuck in undercover. We should be able to get there before the real trouble starts."

"You seem to think something _will_ go wrong."

"Orion is a fortress. Zechs used to tell stories about them—about how strict they were. Perfect, someone once said. And because an entire colony thrives on their presence, they're big… outfitted… and proud."

I stuffed a ski mask in my pocket and let goggles hang around my neck.

"Then let's get going," I said.

We hopped up into our mobile suits, powered up, and cleared the station.

/

It was nearing 3:00 AM when Duo silently padded up to the computer room where he could see Ania's dark silhouette in front of a glaringly bright monitor. He could hear the ringing as she continued to call the Wing Zero over and over again. He sighed, feeling guilt welling up inside him. _I should tell her,_ he thought. _If I do, Heero will wring my neck. But if I don't… Ania will cut it open._ Decisions, decisions.

He snuck up behind her and began one of his specialty shoulder rubs. She jumped at his touch but sank into his masterful finger-work on her tense muscles.

"Go to bed," he said gently, deeply, hopefully seductively in his semi-conscious state. She shook her head.

"I can't. I have to keep—"

"No you don't," he interrupted. "Heero hasn't picked up yet, and he won't. He'll call when he has something to report."

"Something to report? For all we know, they're in danger. Maybe he _can't_ report anything!"

Duo kept working her sympathies with the massage and felt like he was making progress when he heard her groan in pleasure. He grinned.

"He'll call… I know he will."

She dropped her head back to look up into his eyes.

"Why hasn't she called? Why didn't she tell me something was wrong? We have a rule—we work together. That didn't change just because you five came along."

He gently touched the sides of her face, fingertips lined up along her jaw.

"Heero would never let anything happen to Chona. Ever. He would fight to keep her safe… just like I would do the same for you. Whatever is going on, she's safe with him."

She looked from one cobalt blue eye to the next, silently sucking truth out of him in a way only a woman could.

"How can I believe in that? She and I protected each other. We're all we have… we're all we've ever had."

"Not anymore."

Ania gave that some thought and lifted her head so Duo went back to rubbing her shoulders.

"We'll protect you," he said. "_I'll_ protect you…"

He saw her smile in the monitor's reflection and smirked.

"Don't get too relaxed now. I think it's your duty as goddess of death to protect me."

She laughed and stood up.

"And who earned that title, huh? Me or you?"

He followed her out of the room and down the cats.

"A chess match?" he asked. "Do you really think a chess match is worthy to decide these kinds of things?"

"You joined the bet, lover-boy." She spun around when she reached her door. "And until you can earn the title back, I think it belongs to me."

He stepped close to her and his voice dropped to sultry tones. Her sassy ravings, the way her hair was mussed at the end of a long day, her swaying curves, those fiery red-orange eyes that challenged everything about him—she was impossibly sexy. And with him having only a couple hours of sleep, his judgment was feeling impaired; he was liable to do anything, or at least that would be his excuse.

"Ooh, I could prove that one to you…" he muttered. She flushed, surprised by the sudden explosion of pheromones. How he related death to sex was beyond her. _Must be a guy thing…_

"When?" she asked.

"Right now," he replied, eyes lingering over her curves. When he met her eyes again, he could tell she was suddenly confused.

"Okay, now I'm lost," Ania said. "What are you going to prove?"

"Lover."

Her heart skipped a beat and her breath caught silently in her throat. _C… cargo?_ She swallowed the urges winding up like a tornado in her chest and her tone dropped several notches to vixen.

"I don't think you need the disappointment of losing anymore titles to me, Duo Maxwell…" she muttered. A 'goodnight' was coming next but he never let her get that far.

He kissed her hard and fast, and her stomach shot off whirring fireworks that bounced around inside her abdomen. The open-mouthed exchange wasn't church-tongue, it was porno-tongue, and his tongue twisting with hers made her heat up and tingle in a place she could only describe as the southern fortress while her chest swelled with desire.

Duo knew in about thirty seconds, he wasn't going to be able to stop himself, so he took that moment to do so. He licked his lips when he backed off.

"Now that is one title… that you can't take away from me…" he told her. He leaned in and whispered in her ear. "Goodnight."

Ania watched him walk away before she went into her room. Her heart was still thumping wildly. If he could do that with just one sexy kiss, he was either telling the truth and was an extraordinary lover or she was way more attracted to him than she was aware of. In actuality, she could think of some others things this might mean, but mostly she just thought about how she wanted to chase after him and let him kiss her some more… amongst other things.

Ania sighed, hot and bothered and dizzy with adoration. She dropped onto her bed and stared at the ceiling, feeling drunk on this love that seemed to reach new heights every day.

/

The security breech alarm was wailing all across Orion Base. Heero was able to block out the siren's cry and focus on the computer in front of him. The door behind him was jammed shut and soldiers were working hard to break in. He'd gotten far undetected, but he'd been unable to keep his cover for long. The blood from his gunshot wound had soaked through the army green jacket and he felt it momentarily spike in pain; he clutched his side until the throbbing became bearable and went back to tickering at the computer.

One screen after another popped up and he broke through each layer of encryption. Like the perfect soldier he was, he was able to block out everything around him and focus on the task at hand. The dizziness from blood loss had already started to set in but he was determined to finish the job. Heero Yuy had yet to not complete a mission, had yet to fail. He had, however, always been ready to make the ultimate sacrifice and this time would be no different.

Heero was ready to die for a woman—

He couldn't finish that sentence. He didn't know what came next.

As he worked, he came across a file that gave him pause. Scanning the digits, he quickly opened it up and sped-read through the information. Oh the wonders of the knowledge network.

"OZ found more than we thought…" he mumbled to himself.

/

"Approaching Orion Base," Noin's voice sounded over the comm. speaker as I followed her through the docking lane. The dark realm of the colony at night looked like a Christmas event with all the tiny, blinking lights.

"I'm picking up Wing Zero on my target scanner."

"You have the Zero suit's signal digits?"

"Heero programmed it into my suit when he was teaching me how to pilot. He's about fifteen klicks west of Orion Central."

"Gotcha. We'll ease in with the Zero and go in on foot—wait a minute. What's going on?"

Noin and I could suddenly hear the wailing siren and knew the worst had already started.

"Looks like you were right…" I muttered, feeling my stomach sizzle in queasy acid.

"Damn it… Let's bring them in hot. With all of their focus on Heero, we may be able to take them by surprise."

I flipped several controls and set some mood lighting—high-combat mode red. The targeting system took full control, giving me a percentage hit to mobility but upping the numbers on offense, defense, close quarters, and ranged.

"Rolling out the big guns…" I muttered and followed Noin into Orion's perimeter of attack.

"Focus fire at the core unit ahead. Forwarding coordinates."

"Got it in sight. You want to drop the 1000 or 3000 pounders first?"

"You have Boeings?"

"Two. Four 88s, and eight Mavs."

"Then I'll cover your drop. We'll blow their hangars before they have a chance to mobilize. Take point!" Noin commanded.

I zipped in front, dodged the spray of .50 caliber shells, and heard the sputtering of Noin's return fire. I readied the first missile and heard the whine of the machinery maneuvering it into place over the thunderclaps of combat.

"Locked on target," I said over the microphone as the beep, beep, beep sounded when I aligned the crosshairs with the target point. "I'm at eighty kilometers, releasing in twenty…" I announced, running my thumb over the trigger. I watched the numbers race down. "Seventy-five… seventy…"

Noin zipped in front of me, taking the spray of anti-aircraft turrets. I remained on course, focused on the scrolling numbers.

"Sixty-five…" I mumbled. The split second when I entered range came and went in a sudden surge of adrenaline as I mashed the trigger. The missile thundered out of the mobile suit's shoulder and Noin and I spun back around for a second hit. The explosion rocked the colony, lighting up 057 like fireworks in July, and sent a column of black into the sky. A new type of alarm began wailing.

I prepared the second Boeing and went in for another drop. Target locked, range reached, and release. Another explosion.

Noin's voice came over the cockpit.

"That should keep them out of the sky in full force, but we'll have scatter units to deal with."

"What do you want me to do?"

"We need to get inside and find Heero. In order to do what he came here to do, he'll had to have taken over the bridge."

I followed Noin to a landing where we quickly dispatched four Tragos units guarding command. I yanked the ski-mask over my face, pushed up the goggles, and hopped out of the mobile suit. I hit ground running and met Noin in the middle.

"Take this," she said, thrusting a machine gun in my hands, "and this." A handgun was next.

"What about you?"

"I'm going to take your suit and drop the 88s." She tossed me a headset. "Keep me updated. I'll cover you."

I nodded, put the receiver in my ear, and watched Noin climb into the cockpit. I ran for the building. The wall in front of me exploded as Noin opened the door for me and I hopped over the rubble and through the smoke. Manners, in this day and age.

It was strange to have Noin in my ear and not Ania. It didn't feel right. It wasn't that I didn't trust Noin. It wasn't even that I didn't know Noin. It was that she was a foreign voice, unfamiliar. Ania was just as much a part of me as my hand or eyes or brain was. We worked fluidly as one mind in two bodies. Acting alone like this was just like acting without my right hand; and to be clear just how devastating that is, I'm right-handed.

I aggressively negotiated with every Alliance solider I encountered in the form of short, controlled bursts until I ran out of ammo and had to switch to speeches made at the end of a .45 caliber bullet—no bursts involved but just as effective.

I silently skipped up to the sealed door where I knew Heero must be. I couldn't decide if it was the collection of soldiers attempting to break in or the fact that it was central intelligence that tipped me off. I yanked a grenade off the jumpsuit, pull the pin, and threw like I was pitching for kickball. The explosion sent a force rocketing past me chocked full of wall, floor, and wind.

I checked my handgun's chamber. Goody, one bullet. Without waiting for the smoke to clear, I rounded the corner with my gun up, though mostly armed with nerve. I heard the door open up and saw a silhouette move toward me.

Heero Yuy dressed in an OZ uniform came into my sights and I relaxed.

"I almost nailed you dressed up like that!" I blurted. His angry expression instantly readjusted itself to one of utter surprise as he recognized my voice. Maybe he wouldn't be so mad. Then his expression changed again. _Uh oh, _I thought. _Too soon. He's angry._

Heero started toward me but a bullet ricocheting off the door caused us both to duck. We both fired, but Heero got the guy. So much for that! I tossed the gun to the floor, which seemed to anger Heero even more, like he wanted to know what I planned to do with a gun with only one bullet; interesting question that I didn't have an answer for being that I'm a member of the Make-Shit-Up-As-I-Go club. He came at me again but doubled over in pain and fell to one knee. I dropped down to support him and that's when I noticed the inordinate amount of blood.

"What happened to you?" I gasped, feeling suddenly overloaded with panic.

"Why are you here?" he exclaimed through gritted teeth. "I told you to stay behind."

"Noin and I came to help you!"

"I told you to stay behind!" he shouted. His gun popped off three more rounds and another body slumped behind me.

"I've got to get you out of here. Can you stand?" I asked, covering his hand pressed to the wound.

"Leave, now. Before more of them come."

I gripped his shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

"I believe in you, Heero. Believe in me, too."

His face softened as he absorbed my words. I was a little surprised that he gave in so easily and leaned on me for support. I helped him up and we began moving quickly down the hallway.

"What's going on down there?" Noin asked.

"I have Heero. He's injured pretty bad. We're coming out to the Aries."

"I'll meet you there!"

Heero and I shuffled back out the way I came in, with me acting as driver and him as gunman; although, admittedly, ten-toe power and a military issued sidearm isn't as effective as one would like to be, but, hey, we were kickin' it old school—maybe even a little _too_ old school. The chaos Noin's 88s had caused threw attention on regrouping for external assault and Heero had already taken care of most of central's manpower, so we didn't have too much trouble. My lucky day.

When we made it out on the deck, I helped Heero to the Aries.

"Can you pilot?" I asked him. "I'll get the Wing Zero."

He stopped me.

"No. I'm fine," he said, just as he doubled over again.

I yanked off one of the medals decorating the stolen uniform he wore and used it to rip the seams of my pants legs. I felt a little ridiculous, like a bombshell model for a military ad, but with the mask on, I could easily roll through my shame. I tied the material tight around his torso and then doubled the bandage just as Noin landed.

She jumped out of the cockpit.

"We need to get him to the Zero…" She scanned the tarmac, spotted an overturned jeep, and smiled. "Chona, hop in the Leo. We'll need your help…"

I did as she asked, closed up the hatch, and eased over by the jeep. I turned it over and watched as Noin helped Heero into the passenger seat.

"Cover us!" she exclaimed.

I flew with them out to Zero's location, both as protection and guide. I didn't know it at the time, but Heero was already drifting in and out of consciousness. Once he'd been loaded up, he set a direct course for Aria. I helped Noin back to the Aries, let a few Mavs go to cover us, and we barely had to fight out of the colony.

/

The sun was just coming out when Duo Maxwell woke up, brushed his teeth, and made his way downstairs to stop numero uno after waking up: the kitchen. A man's mind is so one-tracked in that early stage of brain activity, that he didn't even notice Ania on the couch until he emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of cereal in one hand, a hotpocket in the next, and an oatmeal bar between his teeth.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked as he maneuvered his food onto the table and sat down, acknowledging Quatre come out of the bathroom and make for the kitchen. "What are you doing up so early?"

"Watching TV," she replied zombie-like, staring blankly in front of her. Duo glanced up at the TV, which was off, and then back at her. He snapped across her eyes.

"Hey, earth to Nia. What's wrong?"

She jumped, blinked a few times, and then zoomed in on Duo.

"Oh, uh… hm. Nothing. I was just thinking."

"About?" he pried, digging into the cereal.

"About Chona… and Heero, wondering where they are, how they're doing."

Quatre leaned on the back of the sofa and smiled across at Ania.

"It isn't unusual for Heero to disappear like this. He's used to fighting alone."

"But he isn't alone. He has my sister with him! Why? Why include her and no one else?"

"It's not much of a surprise," Quatre continued. "Seeing as how they feel about each other, it isn't that strange that she would go with him."

"How they feel about each other?" she echoed. Quatre and Duo exchanged glances.

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed," Trowa said from behind her. She whirled around and eyed him just coming in from outside. "At first, I think it was intrigue. They were so similar, your sister and Heero. Then, it grew to something else. The way they look at each other—Heero's awkward glances, how he doesn't seem to understand her but wants to."

Duo finished slurping up his cereal as Quatre took over the assessment.

"The way Chona is always trying so hard to please him, how his judgment matters the most."

Ania was starting to feel really agitated. Not only did she not approve of their talking about her sister like that behind her back, but that she was beginning to feel, somewhere in her gut, that they were right… and she hadn't noticed. _What kind of sister am I?_ she thought. _I'm too caught up in my own affairs to see what's happening with my own sister? Since when were we this distant…?_

Ania glanced at the three pilots.

"My sister is no puppy, just following after Heero's footsteps. Besides, she'd never have just gone after him without telling me," she said definitively. "And they're nothing alike."

Quatre and Duo shifted uncomfortably but Trowa just shrugged and moved on.

"Whatever the situation, I'm sure we'll hear from them soon," Quatre said. Ania nodded, but she didn't feel reassured.


	9. ZERO

The blur of returning to Aria remains a blur—details that are impossible to sort no matter how many times I run the memory back through my mind. The emergency response unit collecting Heero from the Wing Zero, the shouts and cluster of people, him being whisked away—just patches of light on an otherwise dark screen.

I tried to go after him but they refused to let me back. Even Noin told me to stay behind and let them do their jobs. I just wanted to make sure he was okay. The surgery took hours and it was well into the morning when the lead surgeon came out and declared he was fine.

"He's resting right now, still under the influence of the anesthesia. His vitals look good. He lost a lot of blood, but he's a remarkable human being. I'm sure he'll be back on his feet in no time." The doctor then smiled at Noin and I, gave an acknowledging nod to Sally Po, and exited stage right.

Back on 057, my adrenaline had been pumping so wildly, my focus so clear, that I didn't have time to panic. The soldier in me—that part of me that was like Heero—refused to break down. Someone had once called it "rising to the occasion", but I think that doubles for survival, which has way fewer syllables.

Now, as I was sitting alone in the dark of the waiting room, I was breaking down. Tears were falling down my cheeks at a rate I couldn't even pretend to try to control, my nose was stuffy, I could barely breathe with all the saliva building up from my blubbering. All of the fear—the terror of losing Heero Yuy that should've hit me at the base was hitting me now, even with the guarantee that he was more than alright, but recovering quickly. I was so scared, I was shaking, softly whining, and muttering phrases like "oh God" and "oh fuck…" over and over again.

It was like coming off of a drug.

Thankfully, I was done crying when Noin entered the waiting room with an urgency that allowed her to overlook my glassy, red eyes.

"We have a problem…" she said.

/

Ania was preparing dinner when Wufei finally returned from wherever it was he'd gone to.

"Welcome back," she chirped.

"Any word from Heero and Chona?" he asked. She shook her head. "I heard this on the radio as I was coming in." Wufei went to the coffee table, yanked up the remote, and turned on the news.

"…the attack on OZ's outpost on Colony 057's Orion Base was devastating. The attack started around 0200 but we're told the problem began much earlier in the night when who has now been identified as a Gundam pilot infiltrated Orion Central posed as an OZ solider," the reporter explained as footage of a smoking Orion base scrolled across the screen. "Two unregistered mobile suit units—an Aries and a Leo—aided the pilot by launching a full-scale attack on the base. Central's mobile suit hangar was severely damaged. The Alliance believes this is a possible resistance-related attack, although his Excellency Mr. Khushrenada refuses to make an official statement."

Ania would've dropped a dish if she'd been holding one. Her hands shakily went to her mouth as she watched the attack play in front of her.

"That's Chona's Leo…" she whispered.

"The three rebels escaped as Orion scrambled to reorganize. A considerable force has been mobilized and sent after the terrorists that, sources confirm, originated from the rebel station Aria."

Wufei cut the TV off just as Ania began sprinting up the stairs and into the computer room.

"Damn," he muttered and chased after her. Duo and Trowa came out of their rooms and followed Wufei.

Ania sat in the chair opposite Quatre and immediately began calling the Aria station.

"What's going on?" Quatre wanted to know as they piled behind Ania's chair. Wufei filled the rest of them in on what they'd just seen on the news.

"Pick up, damn it!" Ania shouted at the computer. Finally, a man's face came on-screen.

"Aria space station," he said, clearly distressed.

"Let me talk to Sally Po!"

"She is currently unavailable—"

"This is Gundam headquarters. I need to talk to her!"

Quatre leaned into view of the camera. "It's us, Heyton. Please let us through."

The man did as he was asked and Sally's face came on screen.

"Deploy all units!" she shouted to someone they couldn't see. "Get as far away from Aria as possible. Let's bring this ship straight through and break their center line!" She glanced down at the monitor. "Sally here. I'm a little busy."

"What's going on?" Ania asked.

"Sally, it's us," Trowa said. "Where are you? Where's Heero?"

"I'm on the Peacemillion in fleet with the rest of the mobile suits. We're under attack by Orion forces. Heero's at Aria, just out of surgery, I'm told."

Ania's breath caught in her throat.

"And my sister…?"

"She's with me. Unit 03."

Something happened off-screen to rock the ship and Ania felt tears slip down her cheeks.

"Looks like it's time to suit up," Quatre said.

"We can handle this," Sally said. "They don't have the power to take on Aria. I'll call you back when this mess clears up."

And the screen went black. Wufei turned and began walking away.

"Hey, where you going?" Duo asked.

"I have some things to take care of. I might as well lend a hand," Wufei replied. None of them had yet to learn the truth: that he would jump to Sally's rescue no matter where in the galaxy she was.

"It sounds as though Heero's got something on his mind," Trowa said. "Why go through all this trouble? We should all go to Aria."

"We can't say for sure so there's no need to be so rash," Quatre disagreed. "We shouldn't assume he's planning something."

"Oh, he's planning," Wufei said at the door. "He just isn't acting yet. I'll let you know what I find out." And then he disappeared.

Ania was staring at the monitor, at the blinking screen that said "Call Ended". There was no way she could get to space and no one was talking to her. Why wasn't anyone talking to her? They all had said Chona would be safe. Now, Heero was in the hospital and her sister was in battle.

Trowa and Quatre had left by the time Ania came out of her thoughts. Duo went to put his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't touch me…" Ania said darkly. Duo hesitated until she screamed, "Don't touch me!"

He stepped back, alarmed at her outburst.

"Ania, wh—"

"You all said she was alright! You said she was fine! You lied!"

Ania didn't even look at him. Duo hung his head, feeling foolish. He should've been straight with her from the beginning. Now, he was paying for his mistake.

"Damn it," he muttered, and he slammed his fist into the door on his way out. Ania sat in the chair and sobbed angrily.

/

When Ania and I had first been brought to Aria, I never imagined going back. And when we agreed to help the Gundam pilots fight OZ, the last thing I believed would happen to me was this—fighting a real battle in space. I was glad it happened this way. When Noin and I descended on Orion, I was too concerned with Heero's life to be worried about failing. And now, here in space, I felt a certain and unusual serenity. The whining of machine guns and thundering explosions, the robotic whir of the mobile suits, and the rumbling of the boosters all sounded like the chords of a dance I'd danced before.

Something else was new, though. I was among hundreds—thousands of men who stood for the same principle. Being a cog in a greater machine felt surprisingly good.

"Chona," Sally's voice filled the cockpit and her image flashed up on the screen to my right. "Fall back to Aria. There's been a change in plans."

"Is Heero alright?"

"He's fine. Hurry."

I put my heavy fist through the nearest enemy suit and two of Unit 03's suits fell into the space where I'd been, covering my retreat. When I docked at Aria, Noin was there to greet me.

"I thought you were out in field," I said as she hurried me across the hangar.

"I came back to give you some information. We need to get you and Heero out of here. There's an old officer hangar not far from New Tolland Base back on earth. You'll be safe there."

"New Tolland? Isn't that Alliance?"

"When Zechs and I visited there once, he told me about the place—it's no longer in service. Very few people even know it still exists. He'd intended I use it if something should go wrong—back when I was set to train new recruits at Tolland as it was finishing construction; it was a high-profile target for the former Alliance paramilitary corps back then."

"Why all the way back to earth?" I asked as a small ship came into view. I could see the Wing Zero being loaded onto it.

"OZ is looking for you now. They know who attacked Orion—that it was Heero and a mysterious operative they have only guessed to be the rogue agent at Ohm. If things go badly here—"

"You'll _need_ help. Don't send me away when I can be of use to you!"

"We need to you get Heero out of here," she said firmly. "Please."

I watched as they wheeled Heero out on a stretcher and into the ship. He was still unconscious. I nodded to let her know I would.

"A pilot will drop you 5 clicks south of New Tolland. You'll have a truck to pull the Wing Zero. I've printed loose schematics and dropped the coordinates into this tracker." She handed me a bundle of papers and a GPS device. "Heero has a plan. This is now part of it."

"The revised edition, huh?"

She nodded. "Good luck." And she saluted me.

I watched her walk away and then skipped over to the small ship where the pilot introduced himself as Hanz, the ship as the Aravat, and said he'd be departing in half-an-hour.

I sat by Heero's side as I waited for take-off. He looked so peaceful that way. I felt my heart do a little twirl. _Omigosh,_ I thought. _What the hell was that?_ Still, I couldn't resist myself, so I tucked my hand into his and held it tightly. He felt cold, so I pulled the blanket higher on his chest.

"Why?" I wondered aloud. "Why did you do it? I never went in alone."

The ship rumbled as the pilot fired up the engines and announced departure over the loudspeaker. Moments later, we hovered off of the floor and shot out into space.

The memory of Ohm flashed through my mind. _Yes you did,_ the evil truth-bringer called Honesty in my head said. I recalled how I went into Ohm with no escape plan and stood in that office, staring down at Ania, and prepared to die. _Traitor,_ I mentally said to Honesty, who only rolled her eyes. Boy, did I feel like a jerk.

"You know, as one-man armies, we really suck, huh?" I asked him, but, of course, he didn't answer. I sure owed Ania an apology; now, I knew exactly how she felt. When Heero had gone in as the sacrificial lamb, I felt angry and frightened, like crying and screaming at the same time; I felt like that was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard. I felt like it was completely unnecessary. Why couldn't he depend on me more? That's what I thought.

And now that I understood both sides of the fence, I realized I'd been wrong. So what if I thought that it was the right decision to go in Ohm alone? Being a member of the Make-Shit-Up-As-I-Go-Along club didn't list suicide in their guidelines, bylaws, or fun-filled activities; trust me, I checked. I thought I was serving the greater cause and sparing my sister's life. But was it really necessary?

"We're selfish," I said to Heero. "We really should work on that…"

A red light began flashing in the room.

"What in the…?" I muttered, hopping out of the chair and racing up to the cockpit. Hanz was dodging fire and I saw the bright yellow flashes of artillery zip by.

"We're under attack!" he said. "A group must have separated off of the main force!"

But I had already left, racing down the narrow corridors to the hangar. I jumped into the darkness and climbed up onto the legendary mobile suit strapped horizontal to the transport-bed. I typed in the digits to release the binds and opened the Gundam's hatch.

I felt strange inside the Wing Zero.

The hatch closed and the console lit up with eerie blue light. _Heero,_ I thought. _Fly with me… I'll protect you._

"Open the back. I'm going out!" I shouted to Hanz.

"In what?"

"In Zero!"

"Are you crazy?"

"Like we have a choice that isn't?"

The hatch opened up and Zero and I whisked out into the black. Wing Zero was much harder to handle, tougher to guide. It was as though it resisted my control, almost like it wanted to do the flying. The power behind the Gundam's weapons shook me in the cockpit, but I was determined to get rid of the OZ soldiers chasing us.

I whirled between them with unreal speed and fired several rounds into two of the suits. They exploded into balls of light. I zipped around others, dodging their gun spray. I angled toward the right, fired, and took out a third suit.

The cockpit suddenly shifted and I felt yellow warmth brighten around me.

"What is this…?" I muttered as the scrolling information reflected in my sights like cybernetic eyes.

ZERO.

My brain was hijacked as my pupils widened and space folded back to red gridlines. The mobile suits around me became simple dots, simple targets. I wasn't moving on my own. The beam saber was in my hand and I was darting around the suits, slicing one after the other. But it felt wrong. I wasn't doing it; I wasn't in control. I had wanted to destroy the OZ units, but this didn't feel like war… it felt like execution.

I felt it—whatever it was—creeping up through my hands, traveling like icy mercury up through my veins. It climbed high, twisting around the muscles in my arm and my shoulders and neck.

I didn't even realize I was screaming until the pain crawling into my head set my nerves alert. It was all clear—I could see everything, every possible outcome, all flowing into my brain at once. I was untouchable.

I shot around the enemy suits and cut down one after the other in perfect form. Beam saber—enemy down, shield up—enemy fire blocked, shield down, beam saber to the left, chest guns to the right. It was brilliant, fluid, organic.

Until every single one of them lay buzzing in destruction around me. But I couldn't stop there. Everywhere, there was an enemy.

"Stop! What are you doing?" Hanz yelled as I charged for the Aravat.

_Heero!_ I thought and his face flashed in my memory.

/

Heero sat up suddenly in bed and stared into the darkness. He stumbled off the gurney and to a window where he saw the Wing Zero hovering space.

/

I had stopped, frozen mid-strike, and the ship flew beyond my reach.

I took deep breaths, wide-eyed, and stared at the console in front of me. It was black, powered down as it waited for a command. It terrified me.

"I won't do it…" I whispered to the machine. "I won't let you…"

It hummed silently, as though it were alive. Show me an enemy, it beckoned.

"Come back to the ship," Heero said. "It's over now."

I nodded and eased the suit back into the Aravat. When the ship's door closed and the Gundam's hatch came open, I stumbled out and Heero was there to catch me.

"Heero…" I whispered, still feeling the chilling grasp seeping through my veins, still seeing the eye of the system on me.

"It's okay," he said. "You're okay. That's ZERO," he explained. "You weren't supposed to meet each other yet."

I dropped my head onto his shoulder and we sat there on our knees, his arms limp at his sides.

/

Duo was sitting outside in the cold on the open hatch of his Gundam, deep in thought. He was partly terrified of losing the girl he was crazy about, and partly scared that he already had. The way she'd screamed had made his insides jumble.

The frigid wind blew and he remembered why storming out of the house was a bad idea. He rubbed his hands together and blew on them, wishing he at least had a jacket. The sun had nearly sunk in the sky and, soon, he'd have to go back inside and face the music. If she yelled at him, how would he react? If she ignored him, could he even handle it?

The crunch of dry leaves under boots drew his attention to the ground where he was surprised to see Ania approaching the Gundam, a bundle of clothes in her arms.

"Hey… can I come up?" she asked, voice raspy from crying. He nodded and so she took hold of the tether and rode it up to the cockpit. As she sat down next to him, she pushed a sock hat over his head and dropped his leather jacket onto his shoulders.

They sat without a word while Duo pulled on his coat and readjusted the hat over his braid.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Me, too."

"No, listen… I didn't tell you because Heero wanted to keep it a secret. OZ put out a contract on you and your sister; they were gathering information about the rogue operatives that attacked Ohm. Because you were mostly in the shadows, your profile was pretty empty. But Chona's wasn't. They had photos. It was only a matter of time before they made the connection and figured out who she was, who you were."

Ania searched his eyes as she absorbed the information.

"I don't know where Heero went… but I imagine it was to eliminate OZ's information concerning the rogue terrorists. He probably demanded Chona go with him—to keep her safe. I… I should've told you. I'm sorry I let you go through this…"

Ania's brows were pulled tight.

"You should've," she insisted angrily, too cold to cry again. "Better late than never?"

He shook his head.

"I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news and I had no proof. It wasn't until the attack on Orion that I realized the truth. I should've told you then but I was afraid you'd be angry at me for waiting, and I didn't want to lose you."

Ania laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. The truth was, she didn't want to lose him either.

"I'm not afraid anymore," she said. "This is what we came here to do."

Duo laid his head on top of hers and pursed his lips to keep the relief from flooding out of him.

In the hours she'd had to herself, she'd realized some things—how much she and Chona had depended on each other and how the Gundam pilots had quietly taught them how to depend on themselves. This is what she had intended when she had suggested they not return to Serpent but, instead, stay in Antilles. Now it was happening, but Ania wasn't afraid anymore.

She'd also realized something else… _You'd be a fool to fall in love with the God of Death,_ he'd said after Harvest dinner. And so she was.

"I have a confession to make…" she began and looked up at him. "I'm your fool."

He didn't seem to understand.

"I'm in love with you," she whispered, and suddenly the memory clicked behind his eyes.

He leaned into her lips and kissed her tenderly. He'd only intended to kiss her once, but her lips were magnetic and he couldn't pull away. Their hot breath warmed him to his toes and his mind felt like it was flying away on a drug. He pressed into her and they sunk down with her back pressed to the hatch. The kisses grew more and more heated until he went for her waist and pushed up her shirt, hands seeking the treasures underneath.

Ania shrieked.

"Cold!" she screamed. He realized he was touching flesh and his hands were probably borderline blue.

"Sorry!" he said, yanking her shirt down and rubbing over it to warm her up. When he looked into her eyes again, they were sparkling. She burst into laughter and so did he. He helped her sit up and planted his hand on the top of her head. "Let's go inside."

"Yeah." She nodded, and they made their way back to the house.


	10. Ecstasy

Hanz had helped me refasten Wing Zero to the transporter then waved Heero and I off as we drove out of the ship. We were in the middle of what felt like nowhere, traveling off-road on a somewhat bumpy and otherwise indistinguishable road through the middle of red and yellow trees. I was at the wheel since Heero was still largely recovering the blood loss. After an hour on the path, he'd fallen asleep, the tracker beeping in his lap. It wasn't really necessary—it was a straight shot. We never even passed another vehicle—good thing, too, since not too many people would drive on without stopping to ask why the hell there was a Gundam attached to my ass.

I arrived at the spot shortly after Heero had fallen asleep. Three miles was slow travel when you could barely go faster than 35 miles an hour hauling that kind of weight on such a small engine. I eyed the GPS as I rolled over the indicated blip and waited.

"There's nothing here…" I mumbled. Suddenly, the ground beneath me shuddered. I grabbed the sides of the truck in alarm and we slowly began descending into the ground.

We'd driven onto a platform that was taking us down into an underground complex. The lights flickered on as we sank into a giant warehouse. It was empty, like it had been abandoned for decades; but there was an incredible amount of space just wasting away like this. I looked up and watched the blaster doors close over our heads and seal us inside. At least we'd be okay if the aliens finally showed up to destroy the world.

I hopped out of the truck to explore, leaving Heero sleeping in the passenger seat. I thought about waking him, but his peaceful expression made me feel a little ga-ga so I grabbed my pack and made a clean getaway while I still could.

Stairs to the left led up to a door so I made that my first exploration point, climbed the metal steps, and went through the door. The dark hallway felt impossibly eerie, especially when the lights slowly flickered on, one after the other, all the way down a really long corridor. I expected a ghost to pop out at any second, but then maybe Duo and I had watched too many flicks.

I followed the corridor down to another door with a valve, so I twisted it and yanked it open. It peeled light into a kind of room I wasn't expecting to stumble upon.

The domed ceiling was shaped with the earth above it and rose only about seven feet high. I stepped inside and felt something soft beneath my boots. Carpet. I went in further and ran into a couch, though I managed to catch myself before flipping over the front of it.

I felt a hand on my waist and spun around.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed. Heero stood very close behind me. "When did you get up?"

He moved his hand away and I could tell he'd been trying to steady me.

"This looks like where the General and tactical commander would've stayed during a code red attack."

I watched him move around the space, our eyes finally adjusting to the dark. I looked around, too, and found a red-brick fireplace in front of the couch and chairs. I ducked down next to it, struggled with some matches, and finally set the logs ablaze. The gas popped once and a flare of fire whooshed out at me.

"Nobody panic!" I exclaimed. "I'm a professional."

Heero almost smiled. Almost.

With more light in the room, I got a better understanding of where we were. A kitchen stood directly behind us with a small bar to eat at. Four doors—two on each wall—were build into the back and left wall. The wallpaper was burgundy, carpet some dark gray. There was another valve door on the right, so I twisted it open and peeked into a tunnel that went directly up. I climbed the rusted ladder for what felt like hours until I hit another valve. I twisted, but it didn't budge.

"If you wanna be difficult…" I muttered, readjusted myself on the ladder, and put as much strength into the turn as I could at the awkward angle. It finally wrenched open and I found myself ground level, neck-deep in golden leaves.

When I got back down to the living room, Heero was coming from the back.

"Bedrooms, bathroom, and a tech space—everything an officer in hiding would need," he said. I mentally did a sign of the cross that bedroom had been plural.

"Everything we'll need, I guess," I mumbled, feeling awkward. Heero Yuy and I were going to be spending some close quarters time together… alone… Forget awkward, I was nervous.

Speaking of nervous, I was still in the jumpsuit, feeling a little underdressed with no pants legs and no dignity.

"I guess I should change," I announced and shuffled past him to the first door. It swung open to a bedroom so I ducked inside, danced out of the boots, ripped off the jumpsuit, and crammed myself into jeans, fuzzy-striped socks, and a long sweater with giant buttons down the side. I really love buttons.

When I emerged, Heero was sitting on the couch in front of the fire, gazing at it with tired eyes. I plopped down next to him. He seemed a little distracted by my socks but recovered with the grace of a true warrior.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, eyeing his side even though I couldn't see anything beneath his black shirt.

"I'm fine," was all he said. I frowned.

"Are you mad?"

"At?"

"Me. For following you to Orion."

He shook his head and I mentally sighed in relief.

"No. I predicted you would." He narrowed his gaze on me. "The ZERO system hit you hard, and I'm surprised you were able to stop. No one but a Gundam pilot or someone trained like one has been able to."

"Well, I didn't stop," I said. "You stopped me. It may sound strange but before I went out, I asked you to fly with me. I'm not sure what happened in that cockpit but… I didn't stop ZERO."

He started to say something but decided against it. I chewed my bottom lip nervously as I watched him, with the glow of the fire softening his features. I was starting to scare myself, the way I was being drawn in by him, and I couldn't even blame it on pretty colors.

Heero remembered Duo's words after he'd first found out about the OZ investigation; he'd said, _Stop fighting battles. There's no enemy here._ Heero felt the urge to believe in that right then more than any other time. Through the months the Gundam pilots had spent with the mysterious girls, his heart had started to prick with new emotions. He was young and his life had been filled with war, but something stronger than any other positive emotion he'd ever felt was unfurling.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked.

"The future," he replied. I raised my brows expectantly.

"What about it? Like when the war ends?"

He nodded.

"What will I do with a future not filled with war?"

"Anything you want," I answered, pulling my knees up to my chest and resting my chin on them. I wanted to say, s_tay with me, kiss me, marry me,_ but got a little too carried away for even me to appreciate.

The truth is, I was confused. I thought we were only supposed to be partners, but he'd made several statements that led me to believe that I could hope for more. I needed to know, and I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"Heero," I began. "I need to know something. I need to know… if you want me to remain just a partner, a comrade in the war. Or if it's okay if maybe we could be friends, too…" I waited for him to say something, but he didn't, so I kept rambling. "Whatever you decide, I'll adhere to your wishes. I just need to know."

"Is there something between you and Duo?" he asked me. I blinked, suddenly thrown into left field; confusion times two.

"What?"

"Never mind."

When I saw his gaze shift to the fire, I realized he had been asking if Duo and I were, you know, the L-word.

"Whoa, no. Noooo. Not at all," I replied. "We're just friends; we're more like… best friends? He and Ania are…" I made hand motions, "you know?"_Wow, smooth one,_ I thought. _You certainly handled that with grace._

Then something amazing happened. Heero actually laughed. It took me a minute to recover from the shock, but then I laughed, too.

"Why did you decide to fight the Alliance?" Heero asked, wrapping his arm across his torso to hold his wound. I clenched my toes as I thought back to the past.

"Mmm, well… Nia and I were living with our cousin Bailey in a small town called Dodge when the Alliance came through looking for terrorists. We didn't know it then, but Serpent had been hiding there for quite some time. OZ tore the town up, took control… and Serpent fought them off. Bailey, he… didn't make it…"

"So you joined them for revenge?" he asked. I shook my head.

"Actually, no. I was only twelve at the time; Nia was nine. With the town in shambles, we got the hell out of Dodge. We walked until we came to another small town. Old Butch let us stay in his barn and bale hay for food and a bit of money, which we saved. Eventually, we rented our own place and I got a real job.

"A few years later, when the war got bad, Serpent came through. We remembered them from Dodge, so we decided to join up. The Alliance had hurt us plenty in the past, and we were finding our ideas on the resistance side of the fence. We were in Serpent, acting as independent contractors—that's how they work to keep their network undetected."

"You lived with your cousin. What happened to your parents?" he wanted to know. I blew a strand of hair from my face.

"Donno. Bailey refused to talk about it. We were supposed to 'find out when we were older', but you never really do, huh? He seemed scared of the truth, but… not of the past. Weird, huh?" I shrugged it off. "What about you? Why did you choose this life?"

"I didn't. I was born into it, you could say."

I nodded and dropped my eyes to my wonderfully colored socks. Being as remarkable a soldier as Heero was, I wasn't surprised he'd been trained his whole life for war.

"There's something else we have to do," he said, and I looked up. His gaze had turned very serious, so I set myself ready to listen. "The ceremony for the completion of the Lunar Project will be held in one week at Romefeller's stadium in Bern. The guests will be escorted to the moon to tour the facility after the initial event."

"How'd you know?"

"Soldiers were discussing it when I infiltrated Orion. I looked up the details when I was removing the information on you."

"Ah… I take it you put us on the guest list?" I asked. He nodded and I mentally smirked. _Cinderella is going to the ball, bitches._ "What's special about this base?"

"It's set to be the site of OZ's new mobile suit development lab. More than that, it's a warehouse for an army—an army easily launched against the colonies. We're going to destroy it. This is the beginning to Operation: Shooting Star—everything about it depends on the completion of the Lunar base."

My brows shot up to my hairline.

"Pardon?"

"The base is indestructible if you attack it head on, but once the defense system goes down… the power cores are vulnerable to fire. Take them out—power fails, oxygen fails."

"How do we take the defense system down?"

"That's why we're guests. The only way to get to it is by getting inside."

"Oh, is that all?"

"I'll need Quatre, Wufei, and Trowa with Aria on the outside. Duo, Ania, you, and I will go in."

"Ania's going?" I asked, concerned.

"I'll need a hacker with her talents to get us into DSI control. Duo will keep her safe," he explained. I blew the hair from my face again.

"Okay…" I said. "Escape plan: what is it?"

"We'll utilize the mobile suits in the hangar set up for show. I'll have Aria deliver Wing Zero and Death Scythe to the reported dock. It'll be dangerous. The station will be heavily guarded."

"Sounds like suicide to me. We're in this together, right?" I asked. "No surprises where you run off without me?"

"I'm not going there to die."

"Right, so we're in it together." I smiled, forcing my point onto him.

"Right," he agreed, but I only sort of believed him. Oh, if only he knew just how right I was.

I leaned back over the arm of the couch and stretched, felt my back pop, and eyed a small collection of books between decorative ends on the side table. I plucked one up and glanced over the cover.

"Empire Aredanis," I read aloud. "How very unsurprising they would have a book like this…"

Heero held up his hand so I tossed it to him and selected another book.

"Ah, this one is much more my taste," I said and showed him the cover—a raider investigating ancient tombs of earth. "Indiana James."

I didn't notice him watching me as I flicked on a lamp and opened up to the first page, and I didn't know how long he stared. When I peeked up at him, he was already involved in his own book.

/

Sally smiled wide when Wufei walked through the door and entered command on the _Peacemillion_. Noin was working with Howard, owner of the ship, assessing damages.

"Wufei, it's good to see you," Sally said. He just nodded. "Thanks for all your help. You saved many lives out there."

"What's the situation?" Wufei asked.

"We're set for docking at Aria and then scheduled for repairs. The ship took a lot of damage and the fleet was hurt. There's a lot of repairs needing done."

"I can help with the mobile suits," he volunteered and she smiled again.

"That'd be great. There's some in the hangar if you want to take a look."

He nodded and went back out the way he came in. Noin sighed and came to stand by Sally.

"I don't know, Sally," she began. "I have a funny feeling about this one."

"Everything will be fine," Sally said. "I have faith in our boys' new partners. Just look at the effect that girl had on Heero."

"Yes, they've brought them together. Still, I've got a funny feeling."

"I know, Noin. But what can we do but keep fighting?"

Noin nodded and they went back to work.

/

"Hatcha!" Ania shrieked out a sneeze and then blew her nose. Duo came from the kitchen to where she was bundled up in blankets on the couch. "Of all the people… I mean, you sit out there for hours in no jacket, no hat, nothing and you're fine. I'm out there ten minutes bundled to the hilt and an internal temperature of hell-degrees-Celsius and I'm the one who gets sick."

He passed her a steaming mug of tea.

"It's just a cold. You'll feel better when you drink this."

She sniffled and took the cup.

"What's in it?" she asked. "Nothing to knock me out so you can take advantage of me, right?"

"Hey, you may not want me now… but one sip of this and I'll be the best thing you've ever seen," he joked and sat down next to her. She laughed.

"You already are, now go sit over there before you get sick, too."

"I have an immune system built like a Gundam. I'll be fine."

She accepted that and sipped her drink. _Oh God,_ she thought._ This is worse than that herbal blackroot tea I was once forced to drink. I want Chona's honey-cinnamon mix…_ She almost cried thinking about it in her vulnerable state, but managed to push back the tears by sucking down more miserable Steamy Special.

"So what'll it be?" Duo asked, reaching for the two DVD boxes on the coffee table. "_Apocalypse Rising_ or _Honey, I Smoked A Space Bong_?"

Ania looked from one cover to the next—from radioactive action man fighting zombies backed by a mushroom cloud to some college kid with cracked out hair sucking in reefer from an alien skull. She eyed him from over the top of her tea.

"These films call for an expert eye. I'll leave that up to you and Chona," she said. He laughed and grabbed for another film that actually got a star—five, to be exact—and showed it to her. She nodded but before he could put it in, a bleeping from the computer upstairs caught both of their attention.

They both leapt off of the couch and scrambled upstairs, meeting Trowa and Quatre by the door. The boys let her take the call, afraid of what she'd do to them if they didn't. She dropped into the seat, jammed a key to accept the call, and smiled wide when her sister's face appeared.

I waved from the cockpit of Heero's Gundam and he loomed next to me.

"Chona!" Ania exclaimed. "I'm so glad you're alright!"

"Hey sis." I smiled. "Don't worry. Everything's okay. I'll explain it all, I promise."

"No need. Duo filled me in."

Heero's eyes narrowed on Duo, who rubbed the back of his neck and laughed nervously.

"Heero, what's going on?" Trowa asked. Heero leaned across my lap to punch a few keys on the console and I tried not to blush.

"I'm sending you the operation details," Heero explained. A moment later, the file popped up and the Gundam pilots began reading through his plan to attack the Lunar base. Before he could explain, Ania waved her arms.

"Wait!" she exclaimed and began typing up another call. "Just wait one second."

The beeping stopped after a three count with Heyton at the monitor.

"Aria Station," he said.

"Patch us through to Sally," she instructed. A moment later, Sally appeared with Noin in the background.

"Sally here! What's up?"

"Contact from Heero," she said. Sally pushed a couple more buttons and Wufei was connected to the call from the _Peacemillion_ hangar. Ania pushed a couple keys and linked the calls. "Okay, Heero, go ahead."

Heero ran through the plan once more, sending orders to Aria as he spoke. I couldn't keep my eyes off of him, feeling extremely attracted to his tactical brain. When I glanced up at the monitor, Ania was staring at me. I gave her a small and barely noticeable smile, which she returned.

_I get it,_ Ania thought. _I see it now._ As she watched her sister in the background, she knew the expression on her face, knew the look in her eyes; she knew it because she's seen it herself when she happened to glance in the mirror when she thought of Duo. It was definitely love.

"Duo," Heero said. "I want you and Ania to meet us here. I've forwarded you the location and included a list of weapons I'll need you to bring for Zero."

"Got it," he replied, scanning over the newly sent file.

"What about evacuation?" Ania asked. She always asked about the escape plans. Why did she always have to ask? Luckily, Heero had an answer, because I was sure I'd botch it if I tried to go through it.

After Heero finished explaining and all serious questions had been answered, Ania wiped her nose with a tissue and mumbled,

"So what you're saying is… I have to go find us something killer to wear with a cold?"

I peeked over Heero's shoulder.

"Good luck!"

She groaned and sniffed.

"We'll see you guys in a few days," Duo said and the call went down. Quatre and Trowa began talking to each other about Heero's plan while Duo pulled Ania to her feet. "Ready to see that movie?" he asked. She nodded, feeling sleepy.

Duo scooped her up and carried her downstairs. He put the movie in and then let her lay in his lap while the opening credits rolled. She didn't make it to the end and he felt the soft rise and fall of her chest as she slipped into sleep.

"So I lied," he mumbled. "There was something in that drink… but it's for your own good, I swear."

He carried her up to her bed and wrapped her up tight.

/

Over the next few days, Heero and I grew closer. With nothing much to do, sitting down to dinner became an event I prepared heavily for. He was surprised at how domestic I could be and, hell, so was I. Must've been more of that "rise to the occasion" stuff.

We spent the hours reading and talking and even playing cards with a special edition Order of the Zodiac deck. And the surgeon had been right: Heero healed fast. He was moving around like nothing had happened after only two days. Actually, I was kind of put out; I thought I was the only one in the galaxy that healed that fast. C'est la vie.

It was late afternoon when Heero and I stumbled through the woods, collecting firewood. It wasn't as cold as I had expected December to be, but maybe I only say that because there was no snow on the ground. It was dry, though, and I remember being terrified my skin would dry out.

"Heero," I began, feeling the urge to tap a wondering I'd been unable to get out of my head. "What did you mean when you said 'born in space'?"

"Infants born in space have a natural affinity to a zero-gravity atmosphere. Scientists aren't sure why—the child isn't born in zero-g. The heart beats a little differently. There's hard evidence of the distinction, but no one can explain it."

So I had a heartbeat like a child born in space, did I? Boy, was I special!

As we wandered, I inhaled the scent of winter and thought of Duo. I missed our walks, how I would give him a side-kick in his ass and he would chase after me with a stick, then we would end up rolling around in a pile of leaves. I smiled to myself thinking about it and suddenly found myself in a playful mood.

I glanced over at Heero and waited until he wasn't looking then piled up an armful of leaves and dumped them on his head. He stared at me and I thought maybe I was done for. But then he picked up an armful and threw them back. We tossed leaves at each other and I was laughing so hard that I was stumbling. I glanced back at him and noticed that glint in his eye—that look a hunter would give his prey. I don't know what motivated me, but I started running. And that's the rule, don't run; if you don't run, you won't get chased. But I ran anyway… and he chased after me.

I felt his arms wrap around my stomach and I whirled around to fight him off, still laughing too much to be effective.

"Okay, I give!" I exclaimed and he let me take a minute to catch my breath. "I see what Nia meant about that chess game," I mused.

Duo had once told me that Heero believed the only way to live a good life was to act on your emotions, but I never fully understood that until now. When he pushed my arms away and stepped into me, I realized that while there have been times when he didn't understand his emotions, Heero Yuy had never been afraid of them.

And then the perfect soldier kissed me.

After the first kiss, he paused and looked into my eyes. We both silently agreed that it was good. He kissed me again and I wondered if he would stop after that, but he didn't. Not after the third kiss, not after the fourth. Or, I would've wondered that if I'd been able to, but when he was kissing me… my mind completely shut off and there was nothing else but Heero and I in the entire universe.

I was a little nervous and hesitated touching him, but my fingers curled against his shoulder when he leaned in closer and one thing led to another. I found my hands drifting along his collarbone, his neck, and down his chest.

Heero's hands held my shoulders and he lifted me into him; his arms wrapped around to the small of my back and he pulled me closer. A simple kiss had escalated into something we couldn't stop. Why would we ever stop? And I could smell that scent that left my head spinning back in Antilles—that scent I knew wasn't laundry. And it made me want him so much more. Of course it was him, it had always been him. From the moment he stood before me at Ohm until now, my heart pounded.

But those are the kinds of things you think when you realize you're in love—that it had always been that way, from the first moment, love at first sight, because you can't remember a time when you didn't love them. Of course, it's not true, even I knew that. There was a moment when I was sure I couldn't hate someone more than him… but, right then, I couldn't remember a time when I wasn't crazy about him, just a time when I hadn't yet realized it.

Heero's blue eyes opened up to mine. I wanted to say something, but my mind was still completely blank. And, damn it to hell if I was going to make a joke, which I can sometimes do without brain power. In the seconds that followed, a spark buzzed on in my head, and the female part of me did the insecure thing, allowing a billion questions marks to pop up in my mind.

I think Heero could tell I was unsure, because he smiled for me. Of course, I couldn't do anything else but smile back. And then I wasn't afraid anymore.

"Let's go back," he said, and I could only nod as a response.

When we returned to the hatch, I bent down to gather some of the logs we'd placed there earlier, but he stopped me and motioned for me to go down, so I did. Back in the living room, he pressed into me again and we dropped onto the couch, intertwined, and hot kisses warmed up our cold bodies.

Heero's hands on my waist and his body hovering over mine made me feel small, enveloped. It was as though he could wrap his arms around every inch of me. The truth: it's called vulnerability because when you've given your heart away to someone, you can be entirely destroyed or entirely saved by them. And Heero had taken possession of me entirely.

As we heated up, our coats—our clothes came off and our skin melded together. I remember calling out his name and disappearing into a surreal blur of ecstasy.

He waited until I fell asleep and then went out for firewood. He threw some logs in the fireplace to keep the flames going and then sat next to me to watch me as I slept. When we had been making love, he had noticed a silver chain around my neck with a strange, planetary symbol pendant hanging on it. He examined it closer. Maybe this pendant was the secret to stopping Operation: Shooting Star.

/

Quatre came out of the kitchen and paused, noticing Trowa relaxed on the couch reading. He'd been reading for days, one book after another. Frankly, his calm was starting to unnerve the blond-headed Gundam pilot. Was he really so relaxed about Heero's plan that he could just read with no other worries?

Quatre plopped down in the chair to Trowa's left and stared at him but he never looked up.

"Trowa!" Quatre finally exclaimed.

"Yes?" he asked and turned the page, keeping his eyes trained on the text in front of him.

"What do you read anyways?"

"Literature," was his only response.

If it had been anyone other than kind-hearted Quatre, the book would've been put through a shredder in record-timing and Trowa would've been a victim of the Sawcicle Triple Special, which included the famous moves of the mind mold, heart grab, and Yugoslavian drop—an instant KO in the wrestling world; no one had ever survived the Sawcicle Triple Special, not even Sawcicle.

"Hey, we're out," Duo announced as he and Ania came down from the catwalks and crossed the living room. "I'll see you guys at Lunar…"

"Be careful," Quatre said. "Both of you."

They nodded to say they would, waved to Trowa—who momentarily glanced up to say goodbye—and they left. Quatre glanced back at his fellow Gundam pilot and sighed. He went up to his room, retrieved his violin, and gently pulled the bow across the strings to produce the loveliest sound. A few beats into it, his tempo picked up and the melody filled the near-empty house.

Quatre became so lost in his music that he didn't even notice Trowa get up from the couch and retrieve his flute from his room. Within moments, the whistle of his pipe blended with Quatre's strings and their beautiful music echoed on for hours and hours until their nerves were calmed, their resolve renewed. And then they, too, left in their Gundams for outer space.


	11. Spice

The plane called _The Advocate_ had been parked miles out to avoid problems with New Tolland base and Ania and Duo had cleared the rest of the distance to the hideout in a truck towing Heero's requested supplies and the Death Scythe Hell.

"Think they could've found a more out of the way location?" Duo asked, side-glancing at his surroundings. Oh look! More trees.

"They didn't pick it. Besides, it's beautiful here… wherever here is," Ania replied.

They took the tracker to the exact spot Heero had indicated and were just as surprised as I had been when the ground beneath them started sinking. Duo's reaction was very manly—sheer panic, especially since he was driving.

"Last time I let you lead the way," she mumbled.

"I didn't lead the way. Heero led the way!" he protested. She wasn't having it.

"You were driving, weren't you?"

He frowned and pouted to himself. When they reached the bottom, Heero was hopping off of the Wing Zero and walking over to meet them.

"You got here early," he remarked as Duo and Ania climbed out of the truck.

"We made good time," Duo explained.

"Where's my sister?" Ania wanted to know, anxious for a reunion.

"I'll show you," he said and led them to an open elevator. Punching giant construction-sized buttons coded for grade-school operation, Heero took them back up to the surface, walked them to the hatch that led down to the apartment, and pointed into the forest. "She's down there about a half-a-mile."

Ania started to go but Heero grabbed her arm.

"When we disappeared, you called Zero over and over again. Don't ever do that again," he said. Ania glared at him and her brain went from lucid to rage in point-zero-three seconds. Her hand flew up and she slapped him hard across the face.

"How dare you?" she exclaimed. "You took my sister away without telling anyone, you suicidal bastard! How can you claim to care about anyone when your first thought is to take the easy way out? You don't care what the people around you think or feel at all! So how can I trust in you?"

Duo glanced between his girlfriend and his friend, wondering who he was more afraid of. Since she slapped him, he'd been in a state of total shock.

"Each other is all we've ever had," she continued, "so don't tell me to stop calling!" Ania lunged at Heero and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. "I don't care what happens to you, but you leave my sister out if it!"

With an angry shove, Ania released him and stormed off into the woods. Duo watched her go, one hand swelling with pride that she'd stood up to him and the other hand flaming furious that she'd challenged the perfect soldier. But when he looked at Heero, the Gundam pilot was staring calmly at the ground, as though what she'd said had actually gotten through.

/

"Chona!" Ania screamed when she saw me perched on a small grouping of large rocks where I was taking advantage of the peculiarly warm day. I looked up from the book I was reading, not expecting hear her voice so soon. "Chona!" she called again. I smiled and opened my arms wide. She ran into them and we hugged each other so tight, one might've thought we were about to drop into the abyss together.

"I missed you so much," I whispered, burying my face in her long hair.

"I missed you, too," she replied, muffled against my jacket.

After a moment, she hopped up onto the rock with me and laid her head on my shoulder. I put my arms around her and held her close, wondering how we'd ever managed to be apart. Being next to her again reminded me once more how I wasn't truly at home without her next to me—just more proof to our already established theory that we shared the same soul.

I nudged her forehead with my nose, macho-ly avoiding the tears hiding under my eyeballs.

"You never told me how your date went," I said. She laughed and sniffled, which I'm sure was leftover from her cold, not because she was emotional or anything.

"You crazy bat," she mumbled. "The date? Uh… I have to think back that far?" She laughed at herself. "I had my memory tampered with by Mother Nature's icily vindictive fingers. Fuckin' colds, man."

"You look good," I said. She got an excited look on her face.

"And I found the sexiest dresses for tomorrow night. You're going to love them."

I grinned and tapped her knee.

"Okay, now tell me about your date!" I insisted, anxious to pry the details for both her sake and Duo's. I was curious about the love life of my best friend and my sister—whose love lives happened to be intertwined.

"We went to dinner. We had a great time—it was surreal, really. We just talked, laughed _a lot_. We got back and everyone had already gone to bed. He, uh," she paused, grinning at some memory I was dying to learn about, "said the corniest thing. He told me he could be my dessert."

I started laughing and tried to imagine Duo actually putting the moves on someone. _Whoa, scary! Mental note: don't do that again._ Ania continued.

"He almost kissed me… ah, but then Trowa had to zombie all over the place with his bathroom urges and ruin the moment," she fussed and I snickered. "We went up to bed, though, and that's when he did it—he kissed me. And damn, Chona, he is one hell of a kisser." She recapped the passionate incident when he defended his title as lover and I couldn't help but blush a little bit myself—not because of Duo, but because of the memory the word lover conjured up for me.

"Well?" I asked, refusing to believe it ended at that.

"Well nothing. I got sick, that's what! We can give him points for being sweet. He took care of me. But, please, don't ever leave me again. These people—they feed me such terrible get-well-teas. You're the only one who can do it right!"

"I told you how to make it. It's just some honey and cinnamon in boiled water."

"No, I can't do it the same!" she protested. "Just promise."

So I did, pinky swear and all. After a moment, Ania poked my knee.

"I saw that look on your face," she said. I played dumb. "You know what I'm talking about. Heero."

I sighed and tilted my head back. When I was honest with myself, which I rarely am, I was dying to tell her, and to tell her _everything_.

"Yeah…" I admitted, smiling at the memory in the woods near this very spot, at the memory on the couch, at every second since.

"Did you follow him?" she asked, dying to know if Heero had bewitched me so much that I'd wander off without telling her.

"He told me I had to go with him, for my safety and yours," I said. "I knew, but I was sworn to secrecy. I wanted to tell you, but he phrased it in such a way that trapped me. If I told you, you'd be worried and would come with us. Plus, I didn't want to ruin your date—"

"A date?" she exclaimed. "How about your life?" She crossed her arms, did some deep breathing, and reminded herself she had already decided not to be mad about this. "Never mind, it doesn't matter now…"

I nodded, let the tension roll away, and then gave her a goofy smile. She smiled back.

"So does he know?" she asked me.

"Know…?"

"How you feel about him!"

I must've turned bright red because her eyes wend wide and round like quarters. The glint in her red-orange gaze told me to spill or be spilled.

"W-we… w-well we… w-what I mean is… The day before, he and I were collecting some firewood and I got a little carried away—" I paused when she quirked a brow at me, "—I started a leaf battle," I explained. "And then he kissed me, and we made love."

Ania's eyes bulged and her gaze snapped to the ground.

"In the leaves?"

"No!" I blurted. "We went back to the hideout. Don't, uh… sit on the couch," I warned her. She made a face but I could tell she was smiling underneath. "Last night was the same."

"Hot," she sang.

"It was," I bit my lower lip, "very hot."

Ania leaned forward and brought her knees up to rest her head on them.

"I can't imagine Heero being intimate," she said. "He's so rigid. So stoic. Those qualities make for a good soldier, not a good lover."

"Haaah… you'd be surprised. He's very passionate. A whole new face to Heero Yuy."

"You never told him how you feel?" she asked and I shook my head. "He acted first?"

"Yeah," I replied and my tummy knotted happily. I felt like I would never be able to stop smiling.

"Everyone knows," Ania told me, gaze drifting off to the leafy ground colored red and yellow and orange. I stopped smiling; wow, what a mood killer.

"What?" I snapped with a tone drop to mono. She grinned and I playfully punched her arm. "Rabid bumble-bee…"

After we sat there in the silence, listening to the rustling leaves and cold wind, Ania sighed thoughtfully.

"Of all the things I expected to happen when we met the Gundam boys that night at Ohm, it wasn't this," she said. _Oh, really? This is exactly what I pictured happening,_ I thought, with a little bit of extra sarcasm.

"Me neither," I admitted.

/

"So what makes you think we can go after the Lunar base?" Duo wanted to know as he finished helping Heero unload the weapons from the transport bed of his truck via forklift. He climbed out of the machine and met his comrade at the cockpit of Wing Zero.

"The man who originally drew up the plans for the Lunar Project also created the perfect defense system to safeguard it from all possible threats," Heero explained as he ran diagnostics on Zero. "It was supposed to be a science facility, geared toward researching and engineering the technology for the coming age—to advance mobile suits, Gundams, the colonies, everything to outfit space. It was also to represent a positive relationship between the colonies and earth. The man who is responsible for this is Dr. Roland Spice."

"Spice?" Duo echoed, wondering why the name sounded familiar. Then he remembered Ania mentioning it once. "Wait, as in… Ania and Chona Spice?"

Heero nodded and Duo rocked back and sat down, deflated by the thickening of the plot. Heero climbed out of Zero's cockpit and began unhooking chains that cradled the missiles for him to install in his Gundam. As he did, he continued the story.

"He and his wife, Ameliana, were in space on a temporary lunar station designed to headquarter the terraforming project when their first child was born."

"Chona," Duo assumed and Heero nodded, continuing to work.

"After the project commenced and work went underway, Dr. Roland and his family returned to earth to continue securing support and funding for the development of the facility. Three years later, the doctor's wife had a second daughter, only the pregnancy was complicated and his wife was very ill. Spice needed to return to the moon, and so he took his eldest daughter with him—unable to be separated from all his family. They worked for a year to erect the facility, and that's when he discovered the truth about his precious Lunar Project."

"The truth?"

"The Romefeller Foundation was sponsoring it through OZ. They intended for the science facility to be a military battle station all along. When Spice found out, he refused to continue working on the project. He made the mistake of threatening to revoke his plans, his defense system, and all that had been born from his brain—refusing to let his creations be used for war. He was assassinated shortly afterward and the story retold that a mercenary of one of the colonies had infiltrated the construction site as a scientist and assassinated him in the name of the colonies.

"A loyalist to Spice snuck Chona back to earth and arrived to her mother's estate only moments before OZ soldiers invaded the premises. This loyalist—a man called Bailey Winston—managed to save the two girls, but no one else. He took them to a town far from their home country and raised them."

"Do they know?" Duo asked.

"Parts of it," Heero replied. "Chona told me only that a man named Bailey raised them. She had no memory of her parents and their fate—probably due to the trauma. Ania was too young to remember." Heero finished installing the missiles and went back to the cockpit to register them in the system.

"How did you find out?"

"OZ archives. It seems they were beginning to put the puzzle pieces together. They questioned that Rogue One was the missing eldest daughter of Dr. Spice, which is why they had the file attached to the profile."

Duo took a moment to reflect on that story, feeling his heart ache for the two girls he'd come to care so much for. He had a beautiful, talented girlfriend and a fun, happy best friend. How could their past be full of such darkness like his own?

"Wait," he said. "If the Lunar base was started way back then, how come it's taken so long to finish the project?"

"They couldn't continue construction immediately with the attention surrounding the assassination. They paid their respects to the doctor and his dead family and put the project on hold, giving them time to reengineer it for military use." Heero leaned back to let the system run its weapon check. "I remember Dr. J telling me about this man who once developed the most advanced weapons system for a space station in the history of military technology, and that, before he'd been killed, he'd given the secret to destroy it to his four-year-old daughter."

"Chona…" Duo muttered.

"She told me that this man named Bailey was afraid of something—but not the past. I think he knew what Spice had done and was afraid that if she knew—if anyone knew, they would come after her and her sister. He wanted to take them away from the war."

"It found them anyway." Duo rubbed the back of his head. "Man, this pisses me off. Have you asked her what the code is?"

Heero shook his head. "She doesn't remember anything and I haven't told her what I learned."

"What makes you think she can remember it?"

"Something traumatic happened to her on the moon. If she goes back, her memories may be triggered. I have to try to pull it out of her. That military base is earth's weapon against the colonies. We have to try. I know she remembers; it's just a matter of drawing it out of her."

Duo frowned and his fingers started to curl into fists.

"So you're just using her?" he balked. "Now I'm really getting pissed. Do you really think that's fair to her? To bring back all that pain?"

Heero flicked his gaze at Duo and then went back to his computer.

"I would never cause her pain she wasn't strong enough to survive. I believe in her power to stop that space station and to overcome her past," he said and Duo backed down.

"Wha…?"

"You know the strength those girls possess, and the strength they draw from each other. I will support her, too…"

Duo eyed Heero in wonder. _Support her? Something happened, didn't it, Heero?_ he thought. He wanted to ask, but knew Heero would never admit it. He'd have to corner the other party later, because he knew she wouldn't be able to hide the truth from him.

/

Ania and I were in the kitchen and I was watching her cook when I heard the door to the hangar crank open and two pairs of shoes on the carpet. I peeked into the living room and felt my tear ducts nearly wheel to full blast in joy.

"Duo!" I exclaimed, flapping my arms with excited energy that I had no idea what to do with.

"Chona!" he wailed, and we ran for each other with arms wide open. He hugged me tight and we swayed side to side, wobbled and whimpering about how it had been near unbearable to be separated. Heero and Ania tried to be amused, but I guess they couldn't tell when Duo and I were being serious and when we were being silly. I guess it was one of those inside joke things. Too bad only 2/4 of the present company could appreciate it. For the record, we _were_ being silly… Mostly.

Ania's dinner was cooked on high and ready to go in fifteen minutes. Because the bar only sat two, we all took our plates to the couch and loveseat and used the coffee table as a dinner one. I noticed my sister avoided the couch and Duo, naturally, sat next to her. I tried not to make it too obvious how amused I was.

Conversation was casual until Heero explained how Christmas Eve would go. He told us that Ania and I would be attending as civilian guests, representing a private fund. Duo and he would be too recognizable in the open, so they would take the place of soldiers.

"We'll still be at the gala," Heero told us. "We'll be able to watch you from there and accompany you to space. The private fund you'll stand for is that of the late Dr. Roland Spice, who founded the project years ago."

"Spice?" Ania asked and Duo nearly choked on a green bean. "Wow, what a coincidence." She chuckled a bit. "Won't Dr. Spice be able to identify his real family? He friggin' founded the thing, after all."

"He died before the project could be completed. As far as the world is concerned, he and all of his living relatives are deceased, but his estate was locked from liquidation. It's slowly been bled into the project, so appearing as faces behind the account will be shocking but not unbelievable."

Ania nodded but I felt strange. Why did that man's name sound so familiar? I didn't press the thought, however. _Poor sod for having the same last name as me,_ I thought and kept attacking my food.

After dinner, Duo nudged me in the direction of the door.

"Nature buddy," he sang. "Time to go for a walk."

"Alright, alright," I said and pulled on my coat. I didn't realize that when we left, the tension between Ania and Heero immediately tightened to extremity, like ropes twisting around their throats. Oopsie.

Outside, Duo and I walked and kicked around the colors as the sun sank. Duo recapped his date and I pretended like it was the first time I'd heard it, which wasn't entirely a lie since it was the first time I'd heard it from _his_ perspective.

"I think you could tap that," I said and Duo turned bright red.

"What? No! I mean, why the hell did you say that?"

"It's not like you don't want to!"

"Who said that? I mean, sure I do but—wait, you're trapping me. Just shut up!"

I laughed and bumped him.

"I'm joking. But really, it sounds like she really loves you. I've never seen her look as happy as she does when she looks at you." I didn't want to give away that she'd actually told me how she liked him five out of five hearts, which in girl magazine language meant true love.

Duo eyed me.

"Hey best buuuuddy," he said with a grin. "Speaking of romance, what happened while you two were alone together, huh?"

"Damn it!" I yelled, wondering why everyone seemed to know. Could Ania have been telling the truth? Everyone really did know? _Fuck. Am I in war or high school here?_

I must've been really red, and who could blame me? At every turn, I was being reminded of Heero making love to me, showing me where to touch him, how to touch him, doing that wonderful thing where he—_you're getting carried away again,_ I reminded myself. _Calm down._

"I, uh, got trained again…" I mumbled.

"Hm?" Duo peered at me and then he got it. "Oh, that's _good_," he said. "That's dirty, but good." After a moment of silence, he added, "What did he, uh, train you to do?"

I slapped him and he withdrew the question. We walked around a little bit more, easily finding topics to discuss, and then we came full circle back to the hideout.

Heero built up the fire in the hearth and we all collected around it, talking late into the night. Eventually, I feel asleep slumped on Heero's shoulder and Ania drifted off curled against the arm of the loveseat.

"I guess we should get them in bed…" Duo said quietly. Heero agreed and scooped me up into his arms. Duo eased around Ania so as not to wake her and carefully picked her up. I wish I'd been awake. I could've told him that she sleeps like a fucking rock or maybe like she was dead.

Heero gently laid me on one side of the bed and frowned when Duo laid Ania in the other half. He'd actually planned on sleeping there but didn't feel like arguing with Duo on the matter. They pulled the blankets up and closed the door on their way out.

/

Ania frowned as sparking glass fell around her. She could see the explosions and gunfire around her but they sounded far away. The tink-tink of the shattered glass was soft and stifled, as though this collapsing building was miles in another direction.

In front of her, she saw her sister's face, her sister's body twisting in movement as she ran, going nowhere. What was happening? What was this place?

"Chona?" she called out, but her voice was like a ghost—transparent, unheard. "Chona!" she yelled again, but she could barely hear her own voice.

The crack of a gunshot sounded as distant as the rest of the destruction. The bullet sliced through the air and she saw her sister's head fly back, chopsticks flung out of the twisty design she'd worn. Her brown strands were let loose now colored red and black, and her form propelled forward.

Time stopped for a split second.

"No!" she shrieked and her sister's body collapsed in a heap. Her brown hair was wildly curled on the floor and blood stained the back of her dress around a pretty bullet hole. "Oh God," she cried, trying to run. Her feet moved, but she was going nowhere, stumbling on an invisible wheel like some mouse in its cage.

The world tipped back and she saw her sister's body sliding toward her. She reached out but couldn't quite grasp her hand.

"No! Chona!" she exclaimed as she slid after her. She pushed off of the floor and leapt out into the darkness, into the black of space littered with all of its lights. And then they fell far into the bright white of a star and she was overcome.

She clawed at the milky surface of the star, not sure if she was wet from starlight or wet from tears. Ania pushed through the chaos, the water in her eyes, the thunderous rushing of liquid around her. She had to find her sister's body sinking into the white mud of this star.

"Ania," Chona whispered in her ear. "Look up. Look up!"

Ania's wide eyes obeyed and she snapped her head up.

/

The room was dark when Ania awoke. Her chest was rising and falling in deep, fast breaths, and her cheeks were damp. She sat up the moment she felt oriented and glanced around. It only took a second for her eyes to adjust to the black.

I was sleeping quietly beside her, bullet free. Ania pressed the butt of her palm to her brow and wished the headache away, wished the nightmare gone. But the churning feeling in her stomach was determined to stay and the anxiety in her heart was making her ill.

She slipped down into the cold sheets and cuddled into me. I was beyond conscious thought, but I felt her next to me and, just like those scary, lonely nights when we were children, I put my arm around her. Some part of my brain whispered,

"It's okay."

But I'll never know if she heard it or not.

/

When I'd woken up, I did the bathroom thing, and got dressed. Sunlight would've been nice, but you don't get much of that underground. Who'd have thought? I found Ania in the kitchen baking furiously. She'd cooked us out of ingredients and there were dishes of entrees and desserts scattered everywhere. _Uh oh,_ I thought.

"What happened?" I asked. "Did you and Duo have a fight?"

She looked up at me and her red-orange eyes were reshaped into an expression I'd never seen. She wasn't angry, she wasn't sad—she was absolutely distressed. I was speechless. _W-w-w-w, fuck, _I mentally stuttered.

"What are we going to do with all this food?" I stammered. Duo pushed open the door from the hangar, carrying an empty plate.

"What's next?" he called, clearly enjoying her mood. I narrowed my gaze on him. He must not have figured out what excess cooking meant. _Oh, you will,_ I assured him mentally. _You will._

"You keep eating like this and you're gonna get fat," I muttered as he walked by. He paused, looking terrified. "You probably won't even fit in your Gundam."

"If you're joking, that's cruel. If you're being sarcastic, that's even worse."

"What about honest?"

He gave it some thought.

"I guess honest would be fair…"

I shrugged one shoulder and he went for a second plate. Not even an hour later, Ania and I had packed up everything we needed to take to Bern and were escorted out to _The Advocate_.

"Be careful," Duo told us as we finished prepping the plane for take-off.

"We will," Ania shushed him, tired of hearing it.

"You can't blame me for being worried," Duo said quietly, inching close to her. She smiled as he nuzzled her cheek.

"There's nothing to worry about," she insisted, though her tone had that playful "couple" jingle to it.

"I worry when I can't be by your side to protect you."

She blushed a little and silently surrendered as if to say, _Okay, I forgive you for repeating yourself incessantly for the past twenty minutes._ They shared a loving kiss and then both of their gazes fell on Heero and I to observe the ga-ga-ing and coupleyness.

But we only nodded to each other and I took the printed information Heero had handed me. Ha, take that disappointment, suckers. Heero held up his hand in a wave and I mimicked him.

"See ya in Bern," I said and motioned to Ania. "You ready?"

She scrunched her nose at me.

"Are you even a girl?" she asked as we boarded the plane.

"What?"

"You heard me…"

Duo glanced at Heero as _The Advocate_ took off.

"Time to get back to work and get to Aria," he said.

"Yeah," Heero agreed and they drove back to the hideout.


	12. Lunar

The night of the Lunar Celebration was held on Christmas Eve and the magic of the holiday was popping electrically in the air. Snow had been falling in Bern all week and a white blanket coated the sides of the streets, the tops of trees, and every roof in the city. Winter's dark curtain had fallen early but the city was lit up by celebratory lights, both for the holidays and the long-anticipated ceremony.

Ania and I had arrived in style and walked the red carpet just like every other official present. Cameras flashed in our faces and we smiled brightly as if we belonged. Half of fooling someone is acting like you know who you are; usually, people are too unsure of themselves to challenge you. So we did just that—took that long walk on the velvet like we owned it.

Inside the ship—the _Luna Belle_—we were escorted by faceless men in tuxedos to the ballroom where high ceilings glittered with gold paint and intricate, crystal chandeliers. We swept into the crowd, catching more than a few glances thanks to Ania's unique and excellent eye for fashion.

We were dressed in Mon Derrier's latest evening gown—slinky black with double thigh-high splits. Off-shoulder rolls of fabric—mine in red and hers in purple—draped delicately across our upper arms and wrapped around the bust. Gloves went from elbow to knuckle with French buttons at the top and Derrier's signature fold at the hand. Strappy heels made our feet look petite and graceful but, oh Lord, every step I took was just one more that I didn't fall flat on my face. If only those shoes made me feel as graceful as they made me look.

My hair was pulled up into Japanese chopsticks and Ania's long mane had become a waterfall of curls. The silver-chain with the planetary P symbol hung around my neck, where it always was. Ania's neck and ears were decorated with much fancier metals and stones.

We mingled casually for an hour and then, at 5 o'clock sharp, the ship began its ascent to the moon. We tried looking for Duo and Heero at first, but we never saw them, and so we kept one another company and fended off unwanted suitors or something like that.

Come 7 o'clock, a young man in a deep green military uniform stepped onto the grand stage at the back of the ballroom and cleared his throat into the microphone to gather up everyone's attention.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Lady Une," he announced and disappeared into the background with absolute ease—not exactly Special Ops, but rather wallpaper.

The woman who took the stage wore a red military jacket over white pants and black boots. Glasses perched on the end of her nose and her lovely face was hidden beneath a sinister glint.

"Good evening, lords and ladies of earth. We have gathered here tonight in celebration of the completion of the science facility and military compound on the moon—the Lunar Base." She paused as applause rose up from the main floor; when it quieted, she continued. "Representatives of the Romefeller Foundation, United Earth's Sphere Alliance, Ohm Incorporated, Barton Foundation, Weissenhaupt Estate, and Liebemann are with us tonight, among many others notable donors and supporters of earth's reach into space.

"On behalf of Romefeller and OZ, his Excellency, Colonel Treize Khushrenada, is here to speak on behalf of the Project."

The applause grew thunderous and many folks who had already been seated got to their feet out of respect. The Colonel took the stage, in his decorated blue jacket, white pants, and tall, black boots. He waited patiently for the applause to stop and then smiled.

"Good evening," he began and his voice was strong and velvety; like a true politician, he instantly captured the hearts of all in the room. "We are here tonight to celebrate the completion of the Lunar Project—a noble enterprise that began with the late Dr. Roland Spice many years ago. Tonight, his vision is realized as his ground-breaking technology in mobile suit development, celestial habitation research, and scientific advancement combined with his unrivaled defense system come together as earth's ultimate space station."

More clapping.

"The magnificent bastion floating above us houses the power handed down to us by God," he announced over the applause, which only resulted in raising the thunderous tempo. "And with it standing vigilant, earth will never need another guardian."

Ania and I were smiling inside. _Keep making promises, Treize,_ I thought. _We're going to blow every one of them out of the sky by Christmas morning. Unwrap that gift, you son of a bitch._

When his speech was done—it only took another twenty minutes of superfluous language to convey his point; yeah, we're going to the moon, yeah, it's going to be cool, and yeah, you're proud of it—the band struck up and the festive atmosphere continued. People were drinking wine and chatting, sitting at tables and snacking on hor d'oeuvres, and scattered on the dance floor, whirling and waltzing and looking like aristocratically trained monkeys.

I turned to face my sister.

"The last vigilant guardian?" I asked. "Does he really think that war will end because he has a mobile suit manufactory on the moon? Though peace can only be achieved through war, we need more than a symbol of more war to ensure it. The Gundams inspire hope in mankind because they are capable of being the indestructible force—the idea of peace and embodiment of war—that can save them and then lay down its arms until such another time that they are needed."

Ania glanced behind me but I didn't notice because I was still on my rant.

"The Lunar Base is just a pretty way of saying battle station," I went on. "These people know that and these people deny it. Everyone watching at home on their televisions wants to believe it, too. Ignorance is one thing, but impudence? Apathy? Not to mention weakness…"

I sighed, not noticing Ania's signals to shut my big fat mouth.

"I want more than an excessive use of a thesaurus to secure peace for earth and the colonies. He says vigilant guardian, I say machine of war. When the Lunar Base is lost, what symbol of hope will they have then?"

"Let's hope that never happens," a deep and velvety voice said behind me. I whirled around and stood face to face with Colonel Khushrenada. "I apologize for intruding," he said with a smile and bent into a shallow bow, "but I couldn't help overhearing."

Ania and I bowed back but said nothing. _No problem! Nice speech. Groovy cape. How's the weather?_ Great icebreaker…

"I'm fairly acquainted with the other guests, but I do not believe we've ever met. You ladies are…?"

"We represent the Spice Foundation left behind by our father after his passing," Ania said and Treize was physically taken aback. "Until recently, we remained innominate to shield ourselves from our father's fame."

"Of course," Treize replied, but he was clearly still very surprised and probably very confused. His gaze returned to mine and he managed a damn good smile for being so off-guard. "You have a deep, political root in you. You oppose your father's project?"

"Oppose would imply action, your Excellency," I answered. "I am simply opinionated."

He smiled.

"In that case, you'd make a fine politician."

I laughed, but I was thinking, _I'm glad you realize all you need to be a world leader is an opinion, not a fact or even a theory. Go, go, government._

"I'm afraid I'd be too soft for that arena of cutthroats," I admitted, and it was the truth. Give me a bloody arena of guns, guts, and grenades, I'll take up a rifle and win you a battle or die trying. But a room full of old men talking behind bushy, gray eyebrows? I'm done for the first five minutes in; the pressure is so intense, you'd think they were trying to squeeze diamonds out my ass.

"Then I'll protect you." Treize offered his hand with a charismatic smirk. "May I have a dance?"

I took the offered gesture and bowed. With a helpless glance back at my sister and a meek thumbs up from her, I was escorted onto the floor by my number one enemy.

/

Duo and Heero exchanged glances underneath the black berets they wore. They were dressed in the all-black specials uniform of the Luna Guard and watching quietly from the sidelines.

"She's dancing with Treize?" Duo balked.

"Looks like," Heero said.

"Is she crazy? I don't know if she can handle this. Eloquence was never really her strong point."

Heero frowned. He had to agree.

"You're right," he said. "Ania would be much better suited for political banter. The fact that Chona's a soldier will be obvious to someone like Treize if he's left alone with her too long."

"Huh? Hey! Don't put my girlfriend out on the line like that. I don't want to see him turning her around on the floor any more than you want to see Chona dancing with someone else."

"This isn't about our emotions," Heero said. "I conceded when you told me to stop fighting battles where there was no enemy—but that's not the case here. She knows that."

Duo sighed and rubbed the back of his head.

"It's not that easy for the rest of us, you know…" he mumbled. Heero took a step forward. "Hey, where ya going?"

"To keep this situation from getting out of hand," he replied and then casually made his way around the ballroom, mingling like many other soldiers had done, until he came to stand next to Ania.

"I was wondering when you two would appear," she said without making eye contact. "Where's Duo?"

"Keeping inconspicuous."

"That must be hard for him…" she mumbled and glanced up at Heero. He was looking elsewhere and so she followed his gaze to the dancing forms of Treize and her sister. "What's wrong?"

"You know what's wrong."

"Yeah," she sighed. "I've been worrying all this time. I'm surprised we haven't been figured out. She must've gotten him started on movies or something. I can't imagine they'd actually be talking politics."

"Perhaps it's your cue to take over," he suggested and she nodded.

"Very well."

Before she could go, Heero stopped her.

"I need you to do something for me," he said. "Stop worrying. I will protect her no matter what, so… please, trust in me."

Ania stared at him hard, wanting to watch him break under her gaze, but he didn't and she knew he wouldn't. She folded her arms over her chest and looked elsewhere.

"I guess it can't be helped. Just know that if you're going to take responsibility for my sister, you have to protect yourself, too. There's no way you can die, no matter what, or I'll never forgive you for abandoning your mission. Got that?"

"Yes," he said quietly. "Got it."

"I've got my eyes on you… so don't slip up!" And she strolled onto the dance floor.

/

The first couple of minutes that Treize and I danced were spent in silence. He stared hard at me, his gaze never wavering, in order to penetrate my front and make me vulnerable to him. Truth be told, it was starting to work; his unerring gaze was starting to damage my calm. Who could look into someone's eyes that long anyway?

"So you're Roland's daughter? Truly?" he finally asked with a smile.

"I have none of his great qualities, I'm afraid," I replied. "To say I am his daughter is truth, but I would be embarrassed to assume I am anything like him."

"Not so," he said. "You have his humility, his hazel and almond-shaped eyes, his kind smile."

I frowned. _Okay, humility is one thing, but eyes? Smile? This guy must be thick or am I just imagining things?_ I knew the answer couldn't be that I was actually good enough at this acting thing to pull of actual physical resemblance.

"You're surprised?" he assumed, twirling me away from him. In spite of the fact that I wasn't much of a dancer, Treize was a fantastic leader and was able to make my stumbling actually look purposeful.

"For a man I never really knew…? A little."

I was spun back to his body and he grabbed my hand gently to keep me from bumping into his chest.

"Should I enlighten you, then?"

I should've said no, but my curiosity was getting the better of me. Just how much alike could we possibly be? He took my hesitant silence as a yes.

"You have the same facial twitches that reveal your social insecurity. When Roland was in the lab, he was confident, brilliant; entertaining the public, the donors, officials—he was completely unsure of himself. He had a nervous habit of making jokes to cover his discomfort. I take it from your expression now that you do just the same."

Okay, now was he being played or was I?

"He laughed from deep inside himself. He loved life, loved nature. He saw the moon as just another jungle to walk through, another ocean to swim in. We can stop if you'd like. I'm sure it must be hard hearing about a man you barely remember."

I nodded and was, if nothing else, relieved he was holding me up with such ease; hearing all he had to say made my legs feel like jell-o. _Focus, Chona, _I commanded myself. _You're getting sucked in. Look up and focus!_

I met Treize's eyes in determination. I think he took it as a challenge.

"I believe you can appreciate, however, that he was a tremendously passionate person—about his work, about the harmony between earth and the colonies, and about his family. He loved his family dearly. I'm told the last thing he said before he died was the name of his eldest daughter."

That was enough… I couldn't listen to anymore. I didn't know why, but my chest hurt, my heart ached. I felt horribly weak in the knees and my arms were like spaghetti noodles. Treize, of course, could easily read my distress.

_Ania…_ I thought, but a different face appeared in my head. _Heero._

The song ended and I just stood there awkwardly. He gently clasped my hands.

"I apologize if I've upset you, dear lady. Please, allow me to make it up to you." He slipped his hand around my waist once more and swung us into another dance as a new song began to stream from the orchestra.

Treize changed the subject and we, instead, discussed hobbies like fencing and hunting and riding. I'd never done anything so formal and mostly asked him questions about the activities he brought up.

When the song ended, Ania stepped up and smiled cheerily.

"May I cut in?" she asked with a flirtation smile. I took a step back, relieved, and Treize politely accepted. _Eager to grill the other sister, huh? Sonuva bitch…_

I kept telling myself to move my feet and get off the floor, but they wouldn't budge. I could feel it coming—the breakdown. And for what? A man I didn't know? _Move! Please, move!_ I told my brain, told my feet, told any part of my body that would listen. But nothing happened. It was imminent. I was going to fall apart.

Heero appeared in front of me and took hold of my waist, my hand, and moved me. I was afraid to look at him, afraid to show him the weakness. He must've felt how much I needed him and come to lend me his strength.

"Thank you…" I whispered. He leaned closer and I felt his lips on my temple.

"Don't cry by yourself. Wait until this is over, and let me comfort you." He wanted to hold me right then, but being who we were that night—a UESA aristocrat and an OZ soldier—we would have to settle for a dance.

Heero moved with complete ease, leading me through the song in a way different from Treize. The Colonel led with power but Heero led with strength. Heero had always been a fluid pilot and soldier, moving perfectly with the rhythm of combat, but I was surprised to know just how graceful he was. _A whole new face to Heero Yuy,_ I mused.

When the song ended, Heero bowed as a respective soldier should, and excused himself. I took the opportunity to escape the field and find a place to sit and recuperate on wine and fancy triscuits loaded with expensive cheese. Ania didn't return until someone had announced that dinner would soon be served. She found me and sat down with the type of ambiguity that set me on edge.

"How did it go?" I asked, snatching a cheese cracker before the server took the platter away.

"Ugh, boring mostly. You owe me big time. We talked politics, he fed me some bullshit about our father. I think he was trying to break me, but all I could do was nod and wonder how often he has to go to the dentist to keep that smile so clean with all that lying he's doing."

Wow, that's embarrassing. So I'm the only one to crack, huh? Told ya. Not even ten minutes with the bureaucrats and I'm KOed. I wanted my personal security blanket—a .50 caliber magnum or maybe a machine gun, three-round burst or full auto. I'm not picky.

What Ania hadn't mentioned, however, was Treize's speech on how she so resembled their mother, and how that had made her feel somehow tragically sad inside.

Dinner was served and we ate in peace—a full three courses. It's a good thing the plates were so small or else we would've had to raise the splits in our dresses, if you get what I mean.

After dinner mingling started and we avoided any OZ officials. Shortly after, the announcement that we were approaching the Lunar Base and docking set everyone to their feet excitedly.

I joined several others at the window. The moment I laid eyes on the moon and this military compound, my heart began hurting. I grabbed my left breast, clawed at the pain that had suddenly erupted there.

That place before me was like the house of a ghost.

/

The Aria Station was swarming with soldiers preparing for battle. Of course, they had to wait until the _Luna Belle_ had safely docked on the moon before they initiated the approach. If OZ felt threatened, they would've returned the ship to earth immediately.

Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei were already buckled into their Gundams and were waiting orders from command. Sally was boarded on the _Peacemillion_ with Howard and Noin. Death Scythe and Wing Zero were safely loaded in the hangar, ready to be deployed to the moon when Heero and Duo called for them.

An announcement suddenly came over the loudspeakers across Aria and _Peacemillion_.

"Howard here," he said. "All units deploy to the moon!"

A massive exodus of mobile suits, carriers, and transport units flooded out of Aria lead by the Gundams and _Peacemillion_.

/

The black-uniformed Luna Guard surrounded the throng of guests led by Treize Khushrenada and Lieutenant-Colonel Lady Une as the touring group moved through the hallways of the Lunar Base. Mobile suits could be seen towering in their hangars through the glass windows, awing everyone not used to such sights, which was most of the crowd, as Treize and Une batted back and forth lecturing on the facility.

I remember how excited their faces were, how impressed and how fascinated they all looked. All Ania and I could think was how terrifying, sad, and disheartening it was. It reflected the cold and unforgiving nature of space and nothing of the mysterious and hopeful side of it.

Suddenly, over half of the Luna Guard drew their weapons and targeted the civilians they were supposed to be escorting. Gasps and cries shuddered across the group as the disguised Aria soldiers surrounded them, yanking cans off of their uniform and tossing them to the ground. Smoke bombs rolled across the floor with loud clank-clank-clanks and we were covered in a white mist. Ania and I immediately clasped each other's hands but we were pulled apart and roughly guided out of the dense cloud.

When I emerged, Heero was holding onto my arm and we were sprinting down a hallway. Ania and Duo were nowhere to be seen. I am still amazed and proud that I was able to run in those shoes. Go me! Perhaps it was because I had suddenly gone into mission mode—my confidence spiked and I knew what my objectives were.

This was a dance I knew the steps to.

Heero passed me his sidearm and used the machine gun to blast away any enemies we encountered as he moved down the memorized paths. Left here, right there. It was a blur of adrenaline and I didn't even have my boots. _I could really go for some Kevlar and camos,_ I thought.

The red alert that suddenly began sounding could only mean one thing: the reinforcements from Aria had been spotted.

"Not yet," I muttered as Heero ducked around a corner and fired down the hallway.

/

Ania and Duo were busy fighting their way down another corridor toward Security of the eastern wing.

"Looks like Aria's already here!" Duo said after he'd gunned down two enemy soldiers. With the way clear, they dashed down to the door.

"It's too soon. If they attack now, the defense system will destroy them!"

"Not to mention this station is fully operational…"

Duo kicked in the security office door and fired two short bursts at the guards inside. Ania went straight to the computer and Duo jammed a chair under the doorknob.

"How's it coming?" he asked as she vigorously tickered on the keyboard.

"I've never seen coding like this. It's pretty extensive—built like a vault."

"So what you're saying is…"

"What I'm saying is that it'll be hard to crack."

"Hard? Impossible?"

"I said hard. Nothing's impossible. There's no computer safe from my prying eye…" she told him. "You may be a hacker, Duo… but I'm a shark. I'm built to chomp through black ice." She cut her gaze to him. "Did you bring them?"

He fished into his pocket and pulled out a pair of goggles, tossed it to her, and went back to leaning on the door. Ania caught the goggles and pulled a long wire out of a compartment on the side of the frame. She plugged it into the computer and slipped them on.

The snow that buzzed before her eyes suddenly cleared up and she was propelled into the computer's program.

"Show me your secrets," Ania whispered. "You can't hide from me…"

/

The Gundam pilots and their fellows aboard the _Peacemillion_ and in the mobile suits behind them floated just out of range of the Lunar base's main cannons. The force that spewed out of the battle station suddenly appeared ominously before them.

"Lunar base deployed!" Sally yelled to her units. "Prepare for battle. Stay out of range of those cannons!"

Quatre tightened his fists around the grips and wondered how Heero, Duo, Ania, and I were faring inside. He was worried, knowing that if anything went wrong, many people would die.

The battle commenced and bright balls of light exploded across the frontier as one mobile suit after another was destroyed. One transport unit flew past all the rest. His target: the base.

/

Heero and I ran down a slope and stopped at a formidable set of tightly sealed blaster doors. He tried the console but his access was denied with a bright red glow and complimenting capitalized letters.

"Damn it," he cursed. "Where are they?"

"She'll open them," I said. "She _will_ get them open."

Bullets pinked off of the doors and we ducked behind a sliver of a threshold—me on one side and him on the other. We both twisted around our corners and returned fire, wondering how long we could fend off the ambush before we ran out of ammo or were overrun.


	13. Dead

Ania was lost in cyberspace, unable to hear Duo's questions of what was taking so long. She was no longer looking for a code—there were no randomly sequenced numbers, no impossible-to-guess arrangement of letters. There was only zero and one spiraling around her. Each digit that gave her access to DSI control was like a vault door vacuumed shut to protect its treasures.

But she was a shark, and she crunched through the numbers one after the other. Any great hacker could do it with enough time, but they didn't have time. She needed the answers immediately.

The pulses snapping off in her brain, the little charges popping from the goggles—they were draining her. The payment for being the ultimate destructive force was one only paid in blood. She could feel the toxin seeping into her body, the chemical mixing somewhere between her brain and spinal cord. Without the proper equipment—the proper connectors, the proper programs, the proper lubricants, the proper drugs—she was like an egg dumped out on the sidewalk in the middle of July. The harder she chewed, the faster it happened. If she didn't hurry, her system would crash.

But they couldn't hide from her.

Ania ripped through the final door and entered into the magnificently coded library.

"Welcome," the computer said, "daughter of EVE."

"Computer LX3-SC192," Ania began, but the computer interrupted her.

"My name is Ameliana. What is it you wish to do here?"

"Mother…?" she whispered. Her brain spiked and she remembered she was ten seconds out to losing brain activity. "Open the doors to DSI Control."

/

Just when Heero and I knew we were about done for, the panel next to the blaster doors lit up blue. Heero punched the touch screen and the doors flew open. We ducked inside and closed them quickly. As Heero ran to the computers, I jammed the door from the inside. It would take the soldiers awhile to get in considering the clearance was so strict; only a handful of people on the station actually had access.

I joined Heero at his console but remained facing the doors for one of those just-in-case moments.

"I've hacked into the network," he told me.

"Check," I said, taking up his machine gun in favor of the handgun.

"I'm accessing DSI command and attempting to shutdown the network."

"Check, check."

A few moments passed.

"Got it." He scrolled through the list of commands and came to the self-destruct list. "Command zero-nine," he said. A screen popped up requesting a security code. "Now for the password."

"Check," I said again, not even looking. When only silence followed, I side-glanced at the console and noticed Heero was staring at me. I pulled my brows together, confused, and then I realized he was asking me for the password. "Wait, what?"

"Tell me the password," he said.

"I don't know the password. Are you playing me right now because it really isn't the time!"

He stepped closer to me.

"Remember what I told you about Dr. Roland Spice? He didn't just die, he was murdered—assassinated."

"I don't understand…"

"He died because he refused to give up this information to OZ for them to use for more war." He reached out and gently fingered my necklace. "He gave the power to control the station's ultimate weapon—the defense system—to his four-year-old daughter."

When he met my eyes, I suddenly knew what he meant.

/

Dr. Roland Spice hurried through his bedroom doors and scooped his daughter up into his arms. He was frantic, distressed, terrified. He rushed her out into the common room, headed for the door, but the thunderous banging set him and his body guards on a different course.

His aids helped him and his daughter through a secret passage in the wall and down the tight corridor until they reached another common room. They ducked inside a bedroom while the bodyguards cleared the hallway.

"Take this, honey," he said, cramming a silver necklace into her tiny hand. "Remember that I love you—now and always. I never meant for this to happen and I apologize now for having to leave you so soon…"

"You're leaving, daddy?" the little girl asked. "Why? I want to come, too."

He hugged her small frame tightly until she complained that it hurt.

"I love you," he said again and then held her by her shoulders to make eye contact. "Remember how I told you I had a very precious gift for you? How daddy was going to give you his greatest creation—his favorite toy?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Her name is Ameliana—"

"Just like mommy!"

"Just like mommy," he confirmed. "She will respond to only one word. And you must destroy her."

"But daddy, you worked so hard. I don't want to break your favorite toy."

"Please. Listen to me—I want you to break it. Because _you_ are the password."

Two aids rushed in and one of them knelt by Dr. Spice.

"Sir, they've tracked our movement. We must leave. Now."

Dr. Spice shrugged the man off.

"Take my daughter to safety. They will deal with me first. Use that time to get her out of here."

"But sir—"

"Do it, Bailey!"

The aid nodded after a moment's hesitation. He scooped up the little girl, who suddenly didn't understand what was happening to her.

"Daddy?" she asked, reaching out to him with the delicate, silver chain wrapped around her hand.

Bailey and the second aid ducked inside of another secret tunnel just as the gunshots fired on the bodyguards and the soldiers broke into the bedroom. The little girl could see her father's giant shadow—a shadow she used to love to play inside of, used to long to grow into—twisted with the puncture of bullets and blood spattered onto the wall.

/

Duo yanked the goggles off of Ania's head just as she was entering mental arrest. Another second and she would've slipped into psychosis and the effects of cyber-sickness would've begun to tear apart her spinal cord.

Ania slipped off of the chair and into Duo's arms.

"Ania! Ania!" he exclaimed, shaking her. "Don't go out on me, kid… I need you to wake up!"

She slowly came to, feeling the splintering headache of the toxin dissolving in her system.

"I'm okay," she exhaled. "I'm alright. Let's get out of here."

Duo helped her to her feet and they slipped out of the security office. They checked the system log and noted an unidentified transport unit was flying straight into dock 9.

It was a short run there and, luckily, not well-guarded. The entire station was in an uproar, safe-guarding the officials on board and defending against the attack. They made it to the hangar and kept undercover, waiting for their ride out of there to arrive.

/

"It isn't my necklace," I said, fingering the silver pendant. "This was a gift from my father. You see, it was my birthday that day. I used to beg him to take me to Pluto. I always wanted to go there—the frozen place farthest from the sun. He had told me that I could melt it—that liar. And then the soldiers came…" I met Heero's gaze. "It's my name. That's the password."

Heero went to the console but I stopped him.

"It's not Chona," I continued. "It's my first name… my secret name. A name I'd forgotten until now." I could feel tears wanting to push out through my eyes but I was determined to keep them inside of me.

"What name?" he asked. I pushed passed him and entered the code myself.

"Saia," I said and hit enter.

The screen that came up next was a portrait of my family—my father holding me up on his shoulder, standing next to my mother cradling my newborn sister. The word that blinked across it said "goodbye".

The defense system completely shut down and the data that operated it corrupted itself and bled out in plasmacolor brilliance. It was over. It was gone.

Heero put his hand on my shoulder to anchor me to the ground, but it was okay. I was tethered to space by a memory I didn't want and now it was going to tremor with my wrath.

Noin popped open the back of the transport after she had managed a safe landing and Duo quickly went to collect Death Scythe and Wing Zero from the bay.

"Just in time!" he said, hopping into his Gundam's cockpit and starting up the engine. When the mobile suit had come to life, he pulled Zero out of the back of the transport so that Noin could get out of there. "I'll cover your exit!"

/

Noin nodded and ushered Ania inside the ship. She paused at the door and stared up at her personal hero.

"Duo!" she exclaimed and he turned to her. "Go as the God of Death and destroy all of those who oppose peace!"

He smiled at her fiercely passionate eyes and nodded once, then closed up his Gundam.

"You got it," he said.

Ania went into the transport with Noin, shut the door, and the ship slowly turned on the docking wheel. Ania collapsed on the medical bed, exhausted from her trip into the wired chaos of the network.

"Duo, just be careful!" Noin shouted over the comm. screen. "I'll get us out of here so don't even think about worrying."

The ship flew out of the station as Duo raced along his target route toward the battle.

"Copy that," he said, and then added, "And, Noin? Thanks."

She stared at the console and knew he wasn't talking about her special delivery, but rather the cargo she now carried.

"That's affirmative."

And the call ended.

/

Heero and I were racing for dock 9 after checking the log when the grenade hit and threw us against a wall. The spray that hit nicked Heero in the arm and leg, but he was able to fight through grazes and burns. We fired through the debris cloud but couldn't be sure who we were hitting.

The station was regrouping and we had to get out of there. Fighting them off at this point would be suicide. So we didn't—we left, sprinting down the corridors and praying they hadn't followed. In hindsight, that was a bad idea.

The moment we hit the hangar where Zero was waiting, I heard the loud crack that called out to me from somewhere behind me, demanded my blood. The bullet burned and ripped through flesh and muscle. I don't remember the pain, just falling. I didn't even hit before it went black.

Heero spun around and fired in time to save himself and then he jammed the door, but when he turned to check if I was alright, he saw my body lying there, hair pooled onto the floor, blood streaming from some perfect, round hole in my back and he completely froze. When the surge of panic and rush of pain had completely penetrated every cell of his heart, he ran to me and dropped to his knees.

"Chona," he hissed, turning me onto my back. "Chona," he said again. But I was gone. I couldn't see the tears that fell or hear the unimaginable scream.

/

Ania sat up abruptly and tightly clutched her chest. It was as though the wind had been knocked out of her and she couldn't take a breath. Her heart was being squeezed and a horrible pain was spiking through her back.

She kicked, one arm frantically searching for something to hold on to while the other clawed at her chest. She fell off of the bed and cried out, squirming on the floor as her torment took control of her limbs. She could feel it—her soul being ripped in half.

Ania fought to stand, trying desperately to breathe, to move but her vision was distorted and her body was shaking.

"No, no, please, please, please," she uttered over and over again. "No, no, no, no… please, please." She could feel the spit on her lips mixing with the tears on her cheeks and she collapsed halfway to command. She screamed again and raked her nails across her breast, as if digging out her own heart would end the pain.

Noin heard her and pushed the button that opened the door to the cockpit.

"Ania?" she called, unable to leave her seat.

"Go back!" Ania yelled. "Go back! Chona, she—"

"We can't! Everything is overrun! We can't make it through that crossfire now! Heero will get her out!"

"No!" she shrieked. "He won't! Turn back! She's dead!"

Noin went rigid at the helm, nerve entirely damaged by her passenger's declaration and heart-breaking wailing. She did not turn back, however. She kept flying straight ahead to _Peacemillion_, unsure of what to do.

/

I walked out of darkness and onto an empty sidewalk. A single streetlamp illuminated my path, a bit of the empty street, and the base of a brick building that climbed up into the black. There was a woman standing under that lamp, leaning back on the wall and a trench coat covered her from neck to ankle where black boots looked scuffed and rough from excessive use.

As I drew closer, I noticed her red and black hair and the cigarette she kept lifting to her lips. When I came close enough, she blew a cloud of gray out into the still air.

"Fancy meeting you here," she said and her red eyes opened up. She turned her head to look at me and I was both surprised and confused as to why she seemed so familiar.

"You're…" I began. "You're—"

"You. I'm you," she clarified. For some reason, it felt right in spite of not making any sense at all.

"Am I dead?" I asked. She snorted out smoke and took another drag, still casually perched on the brick.

"Death is a… complicated understatement. I know you've dreamt of me. So has your… sister."

"You mean _our_ sister."

She shook her head and shrugged off of the wall.

"Some things aren't universal," she said but I didn't understand.

"I don't believe that."

"You don't have to," she replied coolly. "It's time for you to leave. You don't belong here. Not like this. Not yet."

"Sure, point me in the direction of the exit because I couldn't seem to find one on my way in, you know, after I was _shot_. There's someone I have to get back to." I thought of Heero's face.

She smirked and took the last pull on her cigarette.

"I am the exit," she said. "I'm the key to your freedom—the key to life, you could say."

I frowned, falling deeper into confusion. _That's not egocentric at all, _I thought. She smirked again as if she could read my thoughts and then responded to them with,

"Hn. Perks of immortality, but it has to happen this way."

"Why?" I demanded as she dropped the cigarette butt and ground out the glowing embers with the toe of her boot.

"Because," she began, reaching inside her trench coat; she drew a .50 caliber magnum pistol and aimed it at me. "Like me,"—her gaze narrowed on mine—"you aren't meant to die yet."

She pulled the trigger and the bullet that flew from the chamber pierced my body and slammed against the shell that had entered me from the other side, driving it out entirely. The blow knocked me back into the darkness and I fell until the mysterious woman looking down on me disappeared.

/

Ania's heart suddenly thumped wildly as the pulse of life alerted her soul to the return of its other half. She could feel her sister returning from the unknown, from that place she no longer wanted to think about. The weight on her chest lifted and her lungs were able to draw full gasps of air.

"She's back…" Ania whispered, sobbing happily. "You're back, you fucking crazy ass bat!" She closed her eyes and allowed herself to slip out of consciousness.

When Noin had safely docked on _Peacemillion,_ she carried Ania back to the medical bed and woke her up after vigorous shaking and yelling. Those red-orange eyes peered up the Lieutenant.

"What happened?" Noin asked frantically. "What do you mean she's dead?"

Ania smiled calmly. "Cyber fever," she said. "I must've been hallucinating. No one is dead."

Noin sighed and collapsed back into a chair. Ania just smiled and closed her eyes again, wishing for king-sized fluffy fluff.


	14. Together

I yelped and sat up suddenly in Heero's arms. He was staring at me, wondering if he could believe in what he was seeing.

"Are you—" he began.

"Yeah," I interrupted. "I'm back. Let's get out of here."

But we didn't leave immediately. Instead, he embraced me and held me so tightly, it hurt.

"You're not allowed to die either," he said, nose buried in my hair. I really didn't know what he was talking about, but I clung to him.

He helped me up and ran for Wing Zero, his hand holding onto mine like he'd never let go. I paused when I noticed the black alloy of a new mobile suit in the corner and tugged out of his grip. I checked with Heero and, when he nodded in agreement to my vigorous pointing, I ran over and climbed the framework to the cockpit.

Heero had Zero up and running as I secured myself in the new mobile suit and took off early to cover my boarding. I fired up the engine and the load-up told me the name of this suit was Hades. _Appropriate,_ I thought, _for one who has just returned from death._

Heero and I took off into the black with the frontier of combat in the distance. The advancing Aria army received word from Heero that the defense system was down and all allies off the station. We were a part of the group that attacked the power cores. We helped the others rock the moon as the legendary base was destroyed, and all of outer space felt our tremor.

_This is for my father,_ I thought. He was reaching out from death in every way, righting the wrongs. He gave us this base, this mobile suit—he gave me life. If I could be his instrument, I would be happy with that.

Treize, Une, and the other officials had escaped the base, but its brief moment of operation was ended in one night. By Christmas morning, the fighting had stopped and OZ was not-so-gracefully accepting a loss.

Back on Aria, we all came together with hugs and shouts of victory. Even Wufei accepted an embrace. When I saw Ania, she was racing toward me and nearly tackled me in a tight hug. A memory I'd once forgotten resurfaced in my mind as I hugged her.

"In just a few months, you'll have a baby sister, Saia," my father had once told me. I reached out and laid my hand flat on my mother's tummy; the tiny creature inside kicked, which caused me to giggle. "Her name is Ania," my father had said. "-ia means 'never without'. Sa is 'strength' and An is 'wisdom'. And now that you are together—and if you always stay together—you will never be without. Do you understand?"

I had nodded yes. I understood just as must as a three-year-old could.

"You must protect her no matter what, Saia. And she will protect you."

At least I had been able to honor one of my father's wishes—that she and I remain together. He was right; as long as we had each other, we were never without.

"You'll never believe what happened to me," I whispered as I held her. She shook her head and I felt her arms tense around me.

"Chona, I don't give a damn! Just don't ever do that to me again!"

I nodded and smiled a bit.

"There's a lot we have to talk about…"

"I know," she replied quietly. "I know."

When she released me, she narrowed her gaze on Heero. He waited expectantly for the chastisement, but she only gave him a thumbs up. He smiled.

The two of them stood silently side by side as the rest of us jumped and cheered and celebrated. Even as Duo and I hugged and flapped our arms and swung around, they remained as they were—watching happily. They were the only ones who knew what had happened and, quite possible, the only ones who understood it. I don't know why I was landed in such a dream, but I knew I had people I wanted to protect. I think she understood that as well. I think that's why she met me there, on the path between life and death.

Sally walked up behind Noin and came to stand beside her.

"So you had a feeling about this," she said.

Noin grinned.

"But it all worked out in the end, just like you said," Noin reminded her.

"I said that?"

"You did at that, Sally." She exhaled her relief. "You did at that."

Three years later…

Quatre's smiling face beamed at the recorder.

"Wufei is spending Christmas with the Preventers, Trowa is still on L3-099C with Katherine, and I'll be with Maganac on L4 a bit longer. I hope you all are doing well, and I'm looking forward to seeing you guys again after the holiday!" he said. "Send me a mail when you can and let me know how things are in Antilles."

The video ended and Duo smiled.

"Looks like Quatre's having a good time, but missing everyone too much," Duo said as he moved into the living room where Ania was sitting with her cup of tea. He kissed her temple and plopped down next to her. "We'd better send him some mail before he thinks something bad has happened."

"He's not the only one. It feels weird having such an empty place. I miss everyone, too."

"It's not so bad being all alone, is it?" he prompted, nuzzling her neck. She giggled and tapped her forehead against his.

Duo sighed and ran his fingers through her long hair, appreciating the way it fell in silky streams and framed her porcelain face. Those dangerous red-orange eyes of hers peered at him underneath her long lashes and made him feel tingly inside.

"You're so beautiful," he said quietly and kissed her tenderly.

The laptop on the coffee table began beeping with a live call. Duo answered it and smiled when he recognized the person on the other end.

"Hey, hey!" he said. "Long time, no see. How's it going?"

"Doing alright," I replied. "It's cold, but beautiful. You're really missing out, Duo. We've got a snowstorm warning, which could potentially bury the cabin. There's already three feet out there as it is. Think about the abominable missions we'd undergo."

"What can I say? Traveling is no good right now." He eyed Ania, who smiled.

"Wow, you're getting really big!" I said, taking mental measurements of her stomach, which had swollen up to epic proportions. "Are you sure there's only one little Duo in there?"

"I really hope so," she replied. "There's only so much I can handle… How's Heero?"

"Good!" I replied. "He's really enjoying the break. We built a snowman the other day. We wound up outfitting him for combat then made other snowmen to accompany him, enemy snowmen, and then had a little battle." I went back to the memory fighting Heero's team of snowmen and resisted laughter.

"Who won?" she asked.

"You have to ask?" Duo quirked one brow. I sighed.

"She just wants to hear the humiliating truth," I said. Duo agreed. Ania still hadn't gotten over that chess game she'd once played against the perfect soldier. "He took out my snow-team with model C4, but I'm pretty sure there was a real grenade involved along the way. I managed to wire the heads off of several of his snow-soldiers, but he took me down round four, and—between you and me—I'm pretty sure he was toying with me three of those rounds."

Ania and Duo glanced at each other. She could tell he was maddeningly jealous of the fun they were having and couldn't resist laughing at his expense.

"Next year," she promised, "as long as you don't put me in this predicament again."

Duo accepted that and eyed me.

"So how did he take you down?" he asked with a smirk. I blushed then threatened to hang up and he withdrew the question.

We talked a bit longer and I wished Ania a healthy Christmas, demanding she not have the baby until I could get home. She told me that if she went into labor before I was home, she would never forgive me and that if I valued my life, I wouldn't miss it. I had only one response to that: yes ma'am.

We all said goodbye and that we'd talk soon and then I hung up.

When I went out to the living room, Heero was standing at the window watching the snow falling outside. The sun had almost finished setting and I was grateful for the fire blazing full force behind him. I came to stand at his side and laid my head on his shoulder.

"How's Ania and Duo?" he asked.

"They're great," I replied. "Ania is getting so big, she looks like she could pop at any sudden movements."

He wrapped his arms around me.

"Did you tell her…?" he asked, gaze dropping down to my flat stomach.

"Not yet," I replied. "I'll wait until after she has the baby."

He placed his hand on my tummy.

"Do you think it'll be a boy or a girl?"

"A girl," I said and he cut his eyes up to me.

"It's a boy," he said. "It's definitely a boy."

He leaned down and kissed me then pulled me into a hug. I stared out the window at the darkness, at the trees in the distance. The heads of two mobile suits—Wing Zero and Hades—were peaking out of the top of the canopy.

I wasn't sure what the future held—war or peace. But there would always be the Gundams to protect the earth and the colonies, and there would always be two crazy sisters to fight beside them with all of their strength and to love them with all of their hearts.

The year was After Colony 195 when Ania and I found our family—the one lost in the past and the one forever tangled in our future.


End file.
